Posts Tagged ‘Child Molestation’
“Finding Ground Zero in Connecticut,” the Underground Economy in an AFCC Courthouse?
[THIS POST has been expanded and revised to about 6,000 words, much of it quotes, and has a feedback form. It links to two groundbreaking “Washington Times/Communities” articles on very disturbing custody cases; what’s groundbreaking is the angle of approach, and type of evidence posted. This post begins referencing TANF, because “TANF” funding is often operative in such cases. And it posts a comment on one of them I couldn’t get posted over at the WT.
My post explains “AFCC Courthouse” (my generic term) in some detail. In this Connecticut case, “AFCC Courthouse” refers to the “Regional Family Trial Docket” in Middletown Connecticut presided over by a certain judge. However the term in general refers to the nonprofit organization (AFCC) started in Los Angeles County [at least, they claim exactly, i.e., 1963] five decades ago, which has a tendency to set up specialized courts, once its judges (membership) are in charge of a family division, or in positions of influence to do so. I forgot to mention, that in its early years, it also incorporated in a variety of states, changed its corporate name (and EIN#) several times, and probably is not properly registered as a nonprofit to this day in all states and territories where it operates (most likely, all 50 + territories). See early newsletters at bottom of my blog. AFCC runs conferences, trains its membership and others, and lobbies for legislative and administrative changes in the way divorce, custody, and dependency law works. Hence calling a certain docket an “AFCC Courthouse” is often very accurate shorthand for that particular courthouse, or docket.
This post was, however, to also publish my comment which didn’t make it onto the Washington Times comments field, for unknown reasons, and for further reference to interested readers. Last I looked, only one of my very generic (nothing specific) comments was cleared. AFter technical difficulties and over three days, I decided to bring my response over here to the blog.
Although I believe the blog makes this plain, FYI I am a survivor of not this type of case (mine involved DV not identified or reported child molestation) and know how devastating it is. I also network with people who believe that the key to this is the money trail, not the harm done the children, which we believe is more likely just collateral involved in extracting the maximum $$ (public and private) through this abusive system of handling such matters. If this subject matter interests you, a contact and feedback form is on the post. (I would’ve added them earlier, had I noticed the widget available on wordpress!)]]
The Time is NOW to Speak Out regarding TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) Extension!
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How to get No-Holds-Barred HHS Grants Info from TAGGS, and a Few Things to Do With It…
Notes from 2014 Year-end on this October 5, 2012 post:
1. This post has charts and tables in it, run before I had the technical know-how to limit the right-hand-margin.
2. I acknowledge the post is unconscionably long — 17,000 words, including this intro.
3. That said, The TAGGS database does not copy well to wordpress, and is not public-user-friendly. It does not lend to us running flexible reports or sorts, as database ought to, although it’s funded apparently with public dollars. Much later, I learned (this is “as I recall” in a 600++ post blog) the software provider was later taken over by an international (Canada?) based firm, but previous to this had been sued by states or state agencies for failures regarding their performance problems. I have worked with databases before, and know that this level of dysfunction in critical issues would not fly, in small, medium, or very large corporations. It’s so bad, I even started a blog in October 2013 intending to simply print out ALL recipients (unsorted). HHS Giveaways, Government Shutdowns.
HOWEVER, it was my work on grants using this database, and then checking out grantees, which developed my understanding of at least the marriage/fatherhood funding, and what a major problem we have in the country when the average citizens DO NOT understand government fiscal accounting, as we are not intended to. I believe that if we did, there would be a major rebellion over taxation in no way limited to political fringe or other labels, such as “Tea Party.” I encourage people to get involved and get a sense of just who IS getting HHS grants. Run some reports, scan the contents, notice oddities; notice who gets the big ones, or how many 1-time grantees, for example, may get a $50,000 “compassion capital” grant, then (checked at the state registration level) the group gets administratively dissolved, i.e., “take the money and run.” Continuing this practice rewards bad behavior, and allows grants fraud and theft of public money.
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When Faith in Faith-Based Nonprofits [with Missions to Rescue Helpless (Boys)] is Badly Misplaced. And Potential Remedies.
(this is a 15,000 word post, including quite a bit of quotes…. and the result of a whole day’s writing, plus some).
NARRATIVE:
On Christmas Day, yesterday, having no (biologically-related) family contact, I was driving around noticing society’s nearly unanimous agreement to shut down business-as-usual for December 25th, every year, as I know they did across the country. Streets and curbs that were normally full of cars, and ripe pickings for the parking monitors (producing income for Traffic Court, etc.), were barren.
So why can’t this same society unanimously also decide to shut down “business-as-usual” for more than one day a year, or in a row, when it comes to child abuse?
Perhaps I’m a heretic in bringing up what happens to young boys in a season focused around the Birth of Baby Jesus to (most likely) what we’d now call an underaged young woman, and Who was the real father??
But let’s get honest — it’d be a hard sell to convince anyone that this season is not about sales to start with. The news, television, local street lighting some places, house decorations, stores, on-line offers, and did I mention, churches?, are all out strutting their stuff, as newspapers frantically take the measure of the economy and encourage people to step up to the plate for the economy and BUY something that won’t outlast the season, might contribute to a diabetic condition, and is otherwise useless in normal life.
And, if possible, another car, or diamond, to show how much you really love each other.
Therefore, I excuse my own lack of reverence for, participation in, or collaboration with this insane holiday. It has been the source of equal amounts of joy and pain since I got married, and afterwards, a colossal sense of loss (after kids are gone), preceded by sense of dread for which incident was going to be concocted for THIS year’s holiday. I could write a chronology of my life based on the transformation of this one holiday (in association with probably also Easter, and the beginning and ends of every school year as well) from, special occasions for wonder, joy, fun, and sharing into the Nightmare on Elm Street. This metamorphosis began shortly after marriage (I remember the marriage — ALL of it, practically — as a living, and pretty much waking nightmare, and it went on quite too long).
So could many others in similar situations. Still yet others can’t, because one year, the holiday cost them their lives. And this is still going on, and “blessed be” anyone that has the guts to keep track by reporting — mine can’t stomach it, for sure.
To me, it’s “Business as Usual,” which is reporting on this– or that. Today’s post is a “that.” It’s been eventful (for sure) in the land of local message-boards stopping local corruption (they’re up / they’re down / they’re up — but is it a real one or a mirror site?) and the parties running them (they’re heroes/ they’re villains), and so forth. This is why I keep an ear to the ground for character indicators, but like to keep a closer eye on the financial flow — which is a little more of an objective thing.
And monitoring and controlling financial flow is a great handle for stopping abuse, better than saying “We Stop Abuse” loudly, often, and expensively. (Wow. I found Women’s Justice Center in Sonoma County CA, is with me on questioning not only these bogus “domestic violence” agencies — which are sleeping (figuratively speaking) with both the family law and the law enforcement sectors, plus some — AFCC — while taking ongoing grants labeled “discretionary” — but also the VAWA itself. Part of my holiday fund-appeal came from a VAWA-related group (it seems), which I think is funny, because when I appealed to some VAWA-type organizations for real-time, tangible help in my situation — the phone line went dead, so to speak. I fail to see what help they are doing anyone besides the program adminsitrators, and anyone whose expertise is in setting up beautiful websites, i.e., a lot of the telecommunications and conference-hosting sectors of the economy.)
TODAY’S TOPIC:
- Remember Kids for Cash in Luzerne County?
- Remember the Penn State Scandal?
- Remember my blogging Project Pierre Toussaint and consistently blogging the problems with nonprofits that keep on collecting AFTER they’ve lost their corporation status (let alone after their founder gets arrested, as Doug Perlitz did)?
- Are You Aware of the Administration’s Knee-Jerk Response in Appointing another Task Force to help others stop embarrassing themselves by getting caught?
Some of my (former) associates are always trying to get a Congressional Hearing to Form a Task Force to appoint Somebody Else to fix the problem they are upset about. They often do this without even bothering to consider what the job of “Task Forces” is to actually do, namely get grants to justify their existence and issue reports (unmonitored, often) about what they actually are doing, did do, or promise to do. That, among other reasons, is why these are FORMER associates. See title of this post.
The other thing Congressionally Appointed Task Forces do – becuase typically they are addressing some systemic outrageous problem that government itself previously created — is to expand authority and expense of the Federal Government’s control over (everyone), while blaming (everyone but itself) for the problems it is solving.
Sooner or later all of this looks to be coalescing, pretty swiftly, into one big, fat, fascist mechanism in which we all will play our federally-assigned places in the newly designed breathing mechanism called “one world” government, aka please re-read Brave New World, 1984, and even A Wrinkle in Time. It’s not like the authors, artists, musicians and playwrights actually ARE functional authors, artists, musicians and playwrights to start with because they don’t notice what’s going on around them, and synthesize it into understandable and symbolic translations, now — is it? Government and faith groups certainly understand the power of the arts (and architecture) to communicate world views, and restructure reality — that’s why they pour so much money into them. Nowadays, this includes anything on the internet as well.
In this version of the future, perhaps we will all be one big happy family (that’s certainly the True Parents’/Sun Myung Moon et al.’s vision, which appears to have folded into the US Presidents’/Administration’s fetish with marriage/abstinence/faith-based & fatherhood programs) — and our futures will have no violence, if only we could just stop thinking, feeling, observing, and leave it to the qualified experts we are paying for to do this for us. But in the meantime we already have had CAPTA (see below) since 1974. There’s been a multitude of task forces and other entities stopping violence against children around.
~ ~ ~ ~
History tells us that this thing about putting everything in “order” with a single, all-knowing & of course kindly male at the top of the heap, and at the top of every family (kind of like the Pope & Santa Claus & God & a Sugar-Daddy all rolled up together) is less benign and altruistic than it may seem. Everybody know your places, and don’t get out of them, either! Just accept another Task Force, and we experts will take care of the problems of:
- Child Abuse AND
- Children Exposed to Violence AND
- woman abuse (VAWA) AND
- domestic violence (NCADV etc.) AND
- father-absence (Fatherhood.gov) AND
- also your local affiliates of the US Government (state/county, Unified Family Court etc.) will take care of local domestic ‘disputes’ as directed by the local AFCC & CRC chapter, about which we are not interested. (i.e., compartmentalization of tasks, but the most important ones lead back to an executive agency).
Go back to work, don’t worry. Somebody, after all, has to pay for this great leadership. Consume, consume, consume — and we will organize and fix.
~ ~ ~ ~
Now, 2011, from the Federal Register — I am talking about, what happened to all the previous Task Forces (etc.) and Initiatives? Why a new one, and what’s so different about it this time? Who wishes — really — to analyze why the other ones have failed in their missions? And why does it take this amount of firepower to convince ANYONE that children being exposed to violence in the home is bad (and can we discuss that it’s also bad for both adults — the person committing the violence as well as the person taking it on the chin, and other body parts). Parents of these children have been reporting it for decades. So have news headlines. So have DV organizations. So have Child Abuse organizations. So now, it’s official?
Notices Establishment of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Pages 67761 – 67761 [FR DOC # 2011-28319] PDF | Text | More Hearing of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Pages 67761 – 67762 [FR DOC # 2011-28322] PDF | Text | More
Justice Programs Office(Below, I post Task Force Members and talk about it more….)
I’m not real informed on CAPTA, but here’s a summary on it from a 2009 Congressional Research Service (fairly neutral gov’t source, I believe; their function is summary explanations; I’ve cited their works on other topics before). Wikipedia describes CRS as the “public policy research arm of the US Congress” or example, they will summarize bills and post it on Thomas.gov, I think… Although Wikipedia also notes:
CRS reports are highly regarded as in-depth, accurate, objective, and timely, but as a matter of policy they are not made directly available to members of the public. There have been several attempts to pass legislation requiring all reports to be made available online, most recently in 2003, but none have passed. Instead, the public must request individual reports from their Senators and Representatives in Congress, purchase them from private vendors, or search for them in various web archives of previously-released documents.
(which what I’m about to cite probably is):
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act: Background, Programs, and Funding
[[==”CAPTA”]]
by Emilie Stoltzfus, Specialist in Social Policy, November 4, 2009
7-5700 http://www.crs.gov R40899
Child abuse and neglect is a significant social concern. Children who experience abuse and/or neglect are more likely to have developmental delays and impaired language or cognitive skills; be identified as “problem” children (with attention difficulties or challenging behaviors); be arrested for delinquency, adult criminality, and violent criminal behavior; experience depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems as adults; engage in more health-risk behaviors as adults; and have poorer health outcomes as adults.
Currently we have a conflict of interest in this statement with the fatherhood groups. All of the above situations are supposedly caused by father absence. This is neatly handled by combining the concept of “father absence” with “child welfare” as seen in the multitude of fatherhood programs on the site “childwelfare.gov.” Actually, a far more significant problem is likely to be father PRESENCE, in some cases, and society’s reluctance to accept that when for the child’s safety father ABSENCE is required, that the mother then (the careless, overly fertile bitch in heat that can’t choose a companion right, and what’s worse is burdening the public welfare caseloads. Oh yes, we forgot to mention that in initially passing Welfare Reform, we (the US Congress– see ethnic & gender profile) particularly are concerned about this characteristic among women…, and hereby “tweak” the “AFDC” (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) to create “Welfare-to-Work” concept, from which adequate and ever-increasing amounts of marriage/fatherhood(abstinence, relationship skills education, etc.) will be diverted so this problem can be stopped at its (alleged) root!!”)
This being a typical publication (notice the domain name, Child Welfare.gov)
The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children
| Author(s): Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, U.S. Children’s Bureau Rosenberg, Jeffrey., Wilcox, W. Bradford. |
| Year Published: 2006 |
In fact, for a REAL quick “Cliff Notes” (summary at a glance) version of the field, FIRST click on that title above, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” I mean, (sorry, I mixed up my comedy of errors period piece titles), “The Importance of FATHERS…”) and see all the hyperlinks in the outline. Then go down to “Appendix B” and do the same thing. That’s about as good a quick education on what’s happening to public funding of untested theory (although the tests continue….) on fatherhood and preventing child abuse through it as one can get.
Appendix B – Resource Listings of Selected National Organizations Concerned with Fatherhood and Child Maltreatment
Listed below are several representatives of the many national organizations and groups that deal with various aspects of child maltreatment, as well as several that address fatherhood issues. Like (by now any regular readers of this blog should know a few of these names). Under the section “For Fathers and Fatherhood Groups” (as opposed to general public)
Bootcamp for New Dads (Irvine, CA)
Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy (Madison, WI)
Center for Successful Fathering (Austin, TX)Family and Corrections Network (Palmyra, VA)The Fathers Network (Seattle, WA )— I guess this one is in case the various state-level Commissions on Fatherhood are falling behind on their nationwide PR, and Fathers and Families Coalition of America ever gets busted for how many improperly incorporated organizations are among its affiliates, that is, allegedly are improperly incorporated — meaning, I haven’t gone through all of them yet).National Center on Fathering (St. Louis, MO)National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (Ogden, UT).National Fatherhood Initiative (Gaithersville, MD)National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute (Los Angeles, CA)National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families, Inc. (Washington, D.C. and see my blog)let’s not forget this set of fathers: Stay At Home Dads, who (just like some Moms) might feel isolated, and need a support group. This is a resource for helping them connect with each other. It just merged with “AtHomeDad” and can be found there (I linked)with the motto (at new site — angelfire.com carries it) “men who change diapers change the world.”
Which gets me thinking – if we could enforce this policy with members of Congress — get them to practice this — perhaps there’d be fewer fatherless children around — there’d be fewer wars!
CONGRESSIONAL RESOURCE SERVICE ON CAPTA, cont’d. , now that I’m through with the sarcasm part… This 2009 summary seems to be in preparation for making sure funding for this act continues. CAPTA started in 1974. We are on the topic of how forming child abuse prevention task forces is a surefire way to stop child abuse, as Penn State and the Haitian Fund, and for that matter, a recent child-rape during a supervised visitation (with both of her parents, one with a sex abuse prior on his record, as I recall) in an FCFC (that’s Families & Children First) funded type building, supported 77% by government funding, including a recent state-wide “Children’s Levy” in Trumbull County, Ohio. Ohio is very “up” on preventing abuse of children — because it has BOTh a commission on Families and Children AND a commission on fatherhood, not to mention a Governor’s Office of FaithBased and Community Initiatives which draws funding (probably) from both sides of that fence (promoting fatherhood and protecting children, as it did the family in Trumbull County which also (I forgot to mention) had an older child — snatched at BIRTH — later (not much later — at about age two) die in foster care too. Which brings me also to the concept of federal incentives to states for foster care, ALSO, and so on . . .. ).
LIKE I KEEP SAYING — IF YOU WANT TO PREVENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, PASS A LAW AGAINST IT, SET UP A TASK FORCE, PAY, EVALUATE, REPORT, AND HOPE. THIS IS FROM THE CRS 2009 REPORT ON CAPTA:
In FY2007, states reported an estimated 3.5 million children were in families investigated or assessed by CPS workers and some 794,000 were identified as victims of abuse or neglect.
In 1974, Congress enacted the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, P.L. 93-247) to create a single federal focus for preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect. As a condition of receiving state grant funds under that act, states are required to have procedures in place for receiving and responding to allegations of abuse or neglect and for ensuring children’s safety.
YES. and by the same logic, to receive federal fatherhood grants, the state organizations or (whatever) are supposed to have procedures in place to prevent domestic violence also. Neither says that there is supposed to actually be any evidence that the program LAST year (or last 5 years) actually did prevent child abuse or domestic violence. Just to have procedures in place. Again I say — where do all these horrible parents come from to start with? Who raised THEM? (See public education, USA?? Foster Care USA? Prior failure to stop child abuse or domestic violence in or out of the home, USA?).
Further, they must define child abuse and neglect in a way that is consistent with CAPTA, which defines the term as “ at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”
Since its enactment, CAPTA has been reauthorized numerous times, most recently by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-36). Currently, it authorizes formula grants to states to help improve their child protective services; competitive grants and contracts for research, demonstration, and other activities related to better identifying, preventing, and treating child abuse and neglect; and formula grants to states for support of community-based child abuse and neglect prevention services. Funding authorization for these CAPTA programs expired with FY2008. However, Congress appropriated $110 million for CAPTA in FY2009 (P.L. 111-8) and a similar amount has been proposed for FY2010 (H.R. 3293). In addition, CAPTA authorizes grants to improve the prosecution and handling of child abuse and neglect cases. These formula grants to states, commonly referred to as Children’s Justice Act grants, are funded via an annual set-aside of up to $20 million from the Crime Victims fund.
CAPTA is LARGE, PERVASIVE, INVASIVE & EXPENSIVE — has it been successful? The CRS summary here shows some of the extent:
Between 1963 and 1967, every state and the District of Columbia enacted some form of child abuse and neglect reporting law to permit individuals to refer cases of suspected child abuse or neglect to a public agency.
Reminder: by definition any “Public Agency” is being financially supported by the public. We pay income taxes, sales taxes, city, state taxes, property taxes, and you name it. Our taxes are used for things far beyond our awareness and comprehension at times, including unwarranted wars on foreign soil (Iraq) and otherwise protecting such things as corporate wealth and Bush Family Interests, aka Oil. Citizens with or without children pay for public schools that apparently are turning out child abusers, and we also pay for the world’s largest per-capita system of prisons, again, which are getting privatized. In these prisons, there’s plenty of outcry about juvenile abuse — as in rapes, isolation, you name it. We fund all levels of law enforcement from the local up to Mr. Holder. So when a public agency exists to protect children and is failing — that’s a very serious situation, and that IS the situation.
I come from a region of the US where a man previously convicted of kidnapping and raping, and had done jail time for it, was let out and thereafter, something got lost — and he was able (with a wife he married, who met him on a prison visit) — to kidnap another minor, hold her hostage in a series of sheds in the backyard in a suburban area outside the SF Bay Area — and while on probation. In this matter, he also went to prison for some other reason for a while — and the wife (living in a mother’s home) held down the fort. This young woman was not only kept hostage and raped, giving birth to two children which she then somehow managed to raise and thought she was their SISTER — she also financially assisted her rapist/captor in his printing business. This went on for 18 years. I’m talking about obviously Phil Garrido & Jaycee Dugard. So I believe from these and plenty of other instances, that it’s time for people at the street level — not the top, most official levels — to examine WHY child abuse continues to be such a horrible problem decade after decade. And to do this we have to start looking at our mindsets (the cult of the experts) and our willingness to believe everything said on the internet and in a very officious manner — without the means to check it out.
Or, our habits of simply throwing up our hands and saying, it’s out of my control, I don’t know. Suppose it were your kid?
Sometimes the most valuable learning comes after the most serious setbacks and defeats — but it happens with a cost, a cost of somehow making the TIME to reflect and investigate “how did we get here” and an insistence on acknowledging when the usual answers simply make no sense.
BACK to CAPTA description:
The rapid adoption of these laws was aided by a model reporting law disseminated by the Children’s Bureau, which is housed within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In 1974, Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, P.L. 93-247) and state reporting laws were modified to conform to the standards it established. In creating CAPTA, Congress sought to increase understanding of child abuse and neglect and improve the response to its occurrence by establishing a single federal focal point on the issue. Since its enactment 35 years ago, the law has been reauthorized and amended numerous times, most recently by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-36).2 Currently, CAPTA authorizes:
• State Grants: Formula grants to states and territories to help improve their child protective service (CPS) systems, in exchange for which states must comply with various requirements related to the reporting, investigation, and treatment of child maltreatment cases. The FY2009 appropriation was $26.5 million.
• Discretionary Activities: Federal data collection, dissemination, and technical assistance efforts related to child abuse prevention and treatment, as well as competitive grants to a range of eligible entities for research and demonstration projects or other activities related to the identification, prevention, and treatment of child abuse or neglect. The FY2009 appropriation was $41.8 million (including a $13.5 million set-aside for the ACF home visitation initiative, $500,000 for a feasibility study related to a national child abuse and neglect
CAPTA — Children’s Bureau in HHS/ACF sets the standard – CPS strengthening — Federal leadership — millions invested. Lots of data collection, dissemination, and technical assistance, plus research & demonstration grants. The same approach has been used for fatherhood and for domestic violence activities, wouldn’t you say (with HHS often the lead public agency, alongside DOJ)…. (All these years, has anyone IN government or HHS bothered to investigate the role of the AFCC, CRC, etc? directorates?)
As a consequence of this huge effort, there are now major reform efforts by parents (and complaints) about CPS abuses of families. It appears their invasions, tossing away due process, guilty-til-proven innocent (but then after proven guilty, other systems still exist to put kids back into the care and comfort of their abusers) and other — a multitude of other — issues tend to bring up whether or not CAPTA was actually a good idea.
See Nancy Schaefer (sorry to keep bringing this up, but a questionable murder/suicide of a State Senator & Her Husband — from Georgia — I feel bears remembering!)
Backing up to 2001 (this is for purposes of simply stating who CAPTA is, and what it’s supposed to be doing, in very basic format, just an intro):
And testimony on its reauthorization in 2001, from a Disabilities Consortium (Disabled Children are at much higher risk of assault, and are assaulted more often, it asserts — which only makes sense when one considers what kind of creep mentality gets off on assaulting helpless children:
Testimony for The Committee on Education and the Workforce Select Education Subcommittee
United State House of Representatives Hearing on
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act [[= “CAPTA”]]
August 2, 2001
Room 2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Submitted by:
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD)
Task Force on Child Abuse and NeglectAccording to an HHS report released in April 2001, substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect investigated by child protective service (CPS) agencies numbered an estimated 826,000 children nationally in 1999. States report that nearly half (44.2%) of the child victims or their families in confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect receive no treatment or any other kind of services following investigation of the report. Deaths from child maltreatment remain unacceptably high: an estimated 1,100 children died of abuse or neglect in 1999 alone. And, as noted above, near-fatal child maltreatment leaves thousands of children permanently disabled each year.
Now here’s the resulting Task Force from recent Congressional Hearings:
Here’s an article on how we need — OBviously– more government funding to study and raise people’s consciousness about the effects of domestic violence upon children (i.e., all those parents reporting all these years, and the children themselves reporting, plust abusers that go on to kill their children is not “real” evidence presented in JUST the right way to convince (who? precisely) that it’s actually bad for children to witness one of their parents beating and abusing the other? We need more evidence that it’s bad WHY? Perhaps to counter the institution — called, for one, the family law system — that tells one parent (often the mothers) that it’s all in their heads? Here it goes, again:
Read on for the translation of what is really meant by this: . . . what do they really want? First the rhetoric:
|
First of all, whoever wrote this should start talking — we want to listen in of course — to the marriage/fatherhood movement, which asserts that NO, it’s NOT domestic violence that causes criminal behavior and substance abuse, plus suicide — it’s fatherlessness! . . . But I believe the reason they are NOT getting their talk lined up right is that it’s just too convenient to lump them together — when it comes to obtaining grants and starting up certain groups to get them — and too inconvenient to let on that they know thats the racket! First of all, we have to hear how no one has done anything to prevent domestic violence against, or traum from witnessing it against someone else, on behalf of children since at least 1974, when CAPTA was passed:
While it is common to hear calls for an “end to the cycle of violence,” it cannot logically end without a substantial focus on the children
Domestic violence programs throughout the country are focused primarily on adults who are involved in violent relationships. A range of services are offered, including temporary housing, crisis counseling, legal assistance, health services, vocational aid, substance abuse programs and anger management and other behavioral modification initiatives for perpetrators. The focus on children comes as a distant second concern.
Perhaps that’s because domestic violence groups are aware of CAPTA already. In fact, they’ve had plenty of conferences with both the child abuse prevention and the fatherhood promotion groups (including BWJP with AFCC on custody matters) already. But if this were publicized then what would justfiy more grants with the “new, improved, re-labeled” emphasis?
OF COURSE, here’s yet ANOTHER (presumably nonprofit — should I check them?) calling the Congressional Hearing a bunch of baloney, and reporting AGAINST it. I’ve heard of this group before, maybe you have:
Here’s their E-Alert about the (then’) upcoming 10/12/11 conference on this theme:
ELERT: Trash-Talk: Call on Rep. Gwen Moore to Cancel Gender-Biased Briefing
A Congressional Briefing on the Effects of Domestic Violence on Children has been scheduled for this coming Wednesday, Oct. 12 in Washington DC. The event is hosted by Makers of Memories and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).
See, when one group sees another group making some inroads against THEIR interests, here comes the negative press, and they go after them with crying gender bias
I see the same reporting and (with my particular background) think: “Hmmm. NCADV — I’ve looked at this group, some of its conferences, grants received, items for sale, and bedfellows, but who is this “Makers of Memories”??? And then I read on — it’s a FOUNDATION. It’s a Nonprofit.
Now here comes “SAVE” to SAVE the day with counterintelligence to the feminists:
As you can see to the side, the image they chose to promote the briefing shows a man, presumably a father, yelling at a small girl who is cowering in the corner. And no surprise, the websites of Makers of Memories and the NCADV are brimming with gender-biased information.
SAVE supports evidence-based efforts to address young victims of family violence. These are the facts that need to be highlighted:
1. Women are at least as likely as men to engage in intimate partner violence. One national survey found mothers are twice as likely as fathers to engage in severe marital violence. [i]
Well, I’m going to say this anyhow — OK, “SAVE,” show me all the headlines on the “estranged husband” “custody dispute” “crime scene cleanp” and the wife was the killer. . . .. . Anyhow, the next two points made:
2. Most child abuse is committed by mothers. According to the DHHS, “approximately one-half (53.8%) of child abuse and neglect perpetrators were women and more than 40 percent (44.4%) were men.” [ii]
3. Partner-abusing mothers are equally likely to abuse their children as partner-abusing fathers. [iii]
(I slogged through some of these type of reports on-line in earlier 2011 on the SFWeekly series by Peter Jamison on California Courts giving Custody to Pedophiles. The GlennSacks hounds were talking like SAVE and NCADV people arguing back. Some look at the stats shows how the word “mothers” breaks down into biological, step- etc. I say there is a difference, but more to the point, let’s talk about what all this talk is really about anyhow — it’s going to be, in the bottom line, about who gets more funding. And I say, it’s about time we scream “WHOA!” — and inspect whether there has been a pattern of tax-compliance and reporting, or tax-EVASION and non-reporting, before voting ANY more appropriations for this stuff. And then I want more parents like me (mothers, and fathers) to get up there and say what difference did it make in My case, or in anyone’s case in our neighborhoods, that we can point to — or that any of these organizations can point to their having tracked.
The truth is, apparently — most of them do not track much more than who was “served” — and notice the quotes.
– – – — ANYHOW — HERE WE ARE WITH ANOTHER TASK FORCE: (found at “findyouthinfo.org”)
December 05, 2011
National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Holds First Public Hearing
On November 29, Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence, part of the Defending Childhood Initiative, convened its first hearing in Baltimore, Maryland. This hearing is the first of four that will aim to gather expert and community testimony on the epidemic of children’s exposure to violence. Coming out of these hearings, the Task Force will identify {{WHAT ELSE:…..}}} promising practices, programming, and community strategies used to prevent and respond to children’s exposure to violence and will issue a comprehensive report presenting its findings.Learn more.
I’d bet my bottom dollar that this “comprehensive” report doesn’t address — at all — what is going on in the family law system, or how all the previous helping groups (particularly certain categories of them0 are presently using the federal grants stream, which apparently goes underground, lots of it, once it’s out of the the very large faucet pointed at favorites.
Who is actually ON the task force is a real slap in the face to common sense. let alone pointing another one — at all — on the issue. Like it’s a TASK FORCE — get it? How many simultaneously operating and funded task forces does it take to turn the other way while some adult in another “help the children” nonprofit (or situation of professional ongoing access to children which already has severe and highly publicized violations of trust track in the record)?
I don’t know — but looks like here’s another one. Public Outcry — Appoint a Task Force — Go through the routines solemnly — distract the public — end of story.
HERE’s the DOJ Description of Who’s ON that Task Force:
The task force is composed of 13 leading experts from diverse fields and perspectives, including practitioners, child and family advocates, academic experts and licensed clinicians. Joe Torre, Major League Baseball executive vice president of baseball operations, founder of the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation, and a witness of domestic violence as a child himself; and Robert Listenbee Jr., chief of the juvenile unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, serve as co-chairs of the task force. The full list of Task force members is located at:
How appropriate — in view of recent VERY high-profile incidents of sexual abuse (allegations) to a high-profile sports figures functioning as substitute father figure for youngsters (i.e., young boys especially) , and highly positioned religious leaders (which seems an unending parade), to make sure the leading edge of this “prevent abuse” includes a Leading Sports Figure with close associations with Fatherhood Promoting Organizations (which Joe Torres has) and a Jesuit Priest, simultaneous with a federal lawsuit against “The Society Of Jesus” for outrages in Haiti, and subsequent money-laundering (?) or at least continuing to collect funding after the perpetrator was arrested!
This “Task Force” membership reveals the public expectation that ONLY prominently placed citizens and people running other nonprofits and foundations (etc.) are truly qualified to report on how to stop child abuse — no matter how often we come to understand that it’s exactly in some of these fields (Child Psychiatry much?) that this abuse takes place and is covered up! I’m listing them all here.
FYI, when I saw this list, I wasn’t just disheartened (hardly unexpected) but also incensed. Another person, who forwarded the link, although we all seem to know how eager certain protective mothers groups are to get a “Congressional Hearing” and feel victorious once they get one — said (she) was “livid,”
This is who is on the force. There are 13 members, and to their credit, 6 are women, but that’s beside the point. Look at the associations:
http://www.justice.gov/defendingchildhood/tf-members.html
Co-Chair:Joe Torre, Chairman of the Joe Torre Safe at Home® Foundation
Mr. Torre, Major League Baseball’s Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations and former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, created his foundation to educate students, parents, teachers, and school faculty about the effects of domestic violence.
Everyone wants to educate others about domestic violence. What an industry. I don’t mean to disrespect or pick on Mr. Torres as a person, however, as myself a person — and a victim of domestic violence — I can assert most groups dono’t want to hear about it. Particularly judges in the family law system, GALs, mediators, faith-groups, and for that matter, when I sought help in recent years from a local DV group, they didn’t have anyone to sit with me until the hearing to renew, or re-instate a restraining order to protect my right to work without harassment from this ex. No money in the budget. I heard the same thing from another judge after my kids were stolen on an UNsupervised visitation exchange: No money in the budget. Eventually, I am out of work and go to the local employment agency looking for some — and lo and behold, there’s LOTS of money from one of the same organizations — to go into middle schools and teach about domestic violence and preventing it. Something’s wrong with that picture — you can perhaps support yourself (as a DV survivor) by becoming a DV advocate, a professional, if you are willing to promote programs that you already now do not, actually, prevent domestic violence or address what happens when children are involved. A.k.a. Sell your Soul, join the business.
Just perhaps people who’ve gone through years of this might want to work in something OUTside the field?
Anyhow — briefly — Joe Torres LOVES the Family VIolence Prevention Fund (and vice versa) which is a major resource center (per HHS) in Preventing Violence. Obviously it’s working — which is why we need this task force, right? Here he is, with FVPF founder Esta Soler, amid other luminaries, rejoicing at the new, groundbreaking “Futures without Violence” set up at the SF Praesidio, as reported in “SF Philanthropy”
Photographer: DREW ALTIZER PHOTOGRAPHYPublication Date: JANUARY 17, 2010House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, Major League Baseball Manager Joe Torre and Actress Joan ChenCelebrated Renovation of Family Violence Prevention Fund’s New International Center and Exhibit Hall on the Main Post of San Francisco’s Historic Presidio. . . .
The Family Violence Prevention Fund, one of the world’s most innovative and respected agencies working to stop violence against women and children, broke new ground on Friday, January 8th with the start of construction on an international conference center and exhibition hall.
Among those who joined Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) Founder and President Esta Soler for the groundbreaking ceremony were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose support has provided significant funding for the $18 million project, actress Nicole Kidman, who will appear on behalf of UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who has been an active supporter of the FVPF’s highly successful national campaign, Coaching Boys Into Men . . .
Building 100, located on the Main Post of San Francisco’s historic Presidio, will be redesigned and reconstructed as a global action center to serve as a forum for international discourse, leadership training, education programs and public exhibitions designed to change attitudes and practices that harm women and children who are oppressed or exploited around the world. Architectural design was provided by BAR Architects and construction is being managed by Oliver and Company.
Success attracts success attracts federal funding — and the architectual firms, etc. and management, and all kinds of businesses are EXACTLY who is profiting from these types of projects. From a group that has used years of “DISCRETIONARY” funding, to be shared with battered women’s shelters in the area — to expand it’s customer base, at its clients expenses. Here’s their own website’s description of the same event.
Meanwhile — in the same city! — we see how the propensity for glamour and royalty and love of the theatrical occasions is shared by family court commissioners and judges — and POOR (Silenced) Mamas continue to speak out against this. No federal funding fro THAT activity! (At least since last I checked). I just about started my blog (unintentionally) contrasting Poor Mamas with “what a friend we have in each other” rhetoric, back in 2009. I didn’t realize at the time that this may have opened a local can of worms. Anyhow, here’s the latest from the same source (looks like the on-line got SOME funding, as it’s had a facelift also, but nothing close to Futures without Violence’s):
(I have posted this photo before on the blog, but from different URL):
Silenced Mamas Speak back to Commissioner Slabach! (LGH: please read!)
PNNscholar1 – Posted on 29 September 2010
San Francisco Family Law Commissioner Marjorie A. Slabach was featured as a “queen” alongside of other California county judges in “Familawt” years ago. Picture featured on the Rogues Gallery at http://home.earthlink.net/~elnunes/camelot.htm Silenced Mamas Speak back to Commissioner Slabach!
. . .Below are details of the upcoming event “Through the Eyes of Children” presented by The Family Law Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco and Rally Visitation Services ** of Saint Francisco Memorial Hospital:
Where: Pierrotti Pavillion Saint Francis Memorial Hospital 900 Hyde Street San Francisco, CA 94109
When: October 7th, 2010. Time: 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Keynote Speaker: Janise Mirkitani, President, Glide Foundation Honoring: Dr. Patricia Galamba and Commissioner, Marjorie A. Slabach Lifetime Achievement Award presented to: Judge Donna Hitchens In a continued effort in re-porting and supporting the “Silenced Mamas” movement, POOR Magazine/PNN will be at this event to protest the honoring of Marjorie Slabach.
**Translation: Access/Visitation funding, Supervised Visitation Network, and how to extract a child from a mother, for profit . . . and other things FVPF simply refuses to acknowledge or properly report about – –in their own back yard! There are 94 signatures on the petition page to have her removed, revealing several of the common practices in family law courts that FWV (formerly FVPF) could care less about — and has treated with silence.
Here’s a slide from an “Winslow Events” organization about this wonderful “futures without violence” group. Obviously the kind of individuals who would know firsthand about the matters they’re dealing with…. They are poor, they are oppressed, and they have walked the walk, particularly with communities of color and helping (groups like Winslow Events — which produced “Produced a stage program and reception event for 500 guests” in order to help stop violence).
Mr. Torres — who says that baseball was a safe refuge for him from violence at home (I understand how getting involved in such activities can help counter it — and until MY family went into the family law system, and even during abuse, I was able to negotiate, bargain and get them there. However, once the custody courts eliminated the ability to work safely, and insisted on frequent and continuing contact (without REAL protection for me at any time past removal of the restraining order) I could not handle this entire burden — which FVPF simply wasn’t interested in — nor could other women in the same situation. You can get help from the Feminists to join a DV group, and simultaneously from the Fatherhood Groups (either directly, or while participating in a so-called DV prevention group), but good luck getting any help going through family law as a result of, or after, leaving abuse. That’s why I believe BOTH terms: “Domestic Violence” AND “Fatherhood” need to be retired, and instead, let’s just look at the nonprofits foundations, and etc.
I don’t see the photo was looking for (Mr. Torres actually holding a banner of FVPF), but this will show his close association:
He tells his story on their website; baseball was a place where he could hide from his father.
On Mother’s Day, he created a video in honor of his mother for the Founding Fathers. Mr. Torre is a member of the Founding Fathers movement which promotes the Coaching Boys Into Men media campaign and training programs. Mr. Torre is featured in the Coaching Boys into Men playbook. You can learn more about the program at the Futures Without Violence’s (formerly the Family Violence Prevention Fund) web site. Mr. Torre also created a PSA for their RESPECT campaign.
Mr. Torre’s story was featured in “Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories,” a PBS special funded by the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation.
Here’s a listing of a whole BUNCH of the Stop Violence, End Abuse, Prevent Domestic Violence, and “A Call to Men” type groups, including “Safe at Home.” This one happens to link to another film, “TELLING AMY’s STORY” which likewise, I have some serious issues with. It is billed as a “Domestic Violence Documentary Film and Public Service Media Project.”
Moreover, it was out of PENN STATE! If you judge by the beauty of the websites and film productions — I’d rate it highly. If you judge by content, I give it a zero! The “Amy” in this situation had a custody case. They dono’t report anything relevant on the family law situation, and she dies at the end, by making a very foolish decisions right after confronting the father (around getting some diapers!) and her parents were lucky they didn’t die too, given the circumstances. The film made no commentary on this, and did not reply when I made several attempts to contact (phone messages, phone contact, as I recall email) about this very disturbing omission. This one even has the One-Stop Justice Shop alliance (that’s what I’m going to call them):
The Family Justice Center Alliance aims to create a network of national and international Family Justice Centers and other models of co-located, multi-agency service centers for victims of family violence and their children with close working relationships, shared training and technical assistance, collaborative learning processes, and coordinated funding assistance.
A LET”S GET HONEST MOMENT (actually, COMment):
The laugh truly is on the public if we continue to believe that people who insist on associating with each other as luminaries, reformes, educators, and collaborators — the coalitions of coalitions, the alliances, the partnerships, the centers, the projects, the initiatives, and — case in point — the Task Forces — are going to ever do anything other than MORE OF THE SAME until it becomes unprofitable for these individual groups to keep doing so. Seeing as we have been taught to look up them and be reassured by them that “someone” is on the job, that’s probably not anytime soon.
NEXT MEMBER OF THIS DEFENDING THE CHILDREN TYPE TASK FORCE:
Co-Chair:Robert Listenbee, Jr., J.D., Chief of the Juvenile Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia
Mr. Listenbee also serves as a member of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.Father Gregory Boyle, S.J., Founder of Homeboy Industries
Fr. Boyle was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1984 and serves as a member of the National Gang Center Advisory Board.
I believe that this Father Boyle very likely has done wonders, and helped lots of people. But as I am in the business of looking at the business angle, I first of all noticed that (no offence) I think it’s relevant that someone decided to put a sports figure (above) and a Jesuit Priest on a task force of this nature, when there’s an open federal court, and a SCANDALOUS one involving a Jesuit Priest at a (I think) Jesuit University scamming the public by continuing to collect funds AFTER arrest of a perp — in Connecticut, USA regarding Haiti. Would it not make sense for members of some of these organizations, rather than trying to save everyone and stop gang violence, instead started cleaning their own hosue and examining their own consciences?
Be that as it may — and this might be a separate post (except it’s been a long day, and I need to close out). I looked, naturally, at Fr. Boyle, S.J. and noticed that he was recipient of an “Opus Prize.” I know Latin, and had heard of a cult called “Opus Dei,” however, this relates to the Opus Corporation. TO cut matters short, they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, except that this kind of behavior apparently goes with the territory of being wildly successful as a corporation (particularly real estate) and figuring out the proper use of foundations –and subsidiaries — which is to funnel money torwards the family trusts (in this case “Rauenhorst”)
In such situations, along the way helping stop some gang violence, sooner or later somebody reports. No matter — at this level, one can afford lawyers, and/or to settle when caught (or accused). This settlement kind of reminds me of child support contractor, the megalith “Maximus” having to settle for about $30 million on fraud (or — see record) charges in more than one state. No matter– it’s still in business all over the US and abroad also.
Wealth Accumulation and “keeping it in the Family” hasn’t exactly been a new practice for this religion, or others, but here’s how it played out this time.
To make it clear — I’m not at all connecting the individual, Fr. Gregory Boyle, S.J. — with this corporation other than to say its Prize is funded by its Foundation which is funded by its Corporation, which apparently has some ethical issues. Didn’t take me too long to find the reports on it — so goes the internet, if you look…..
05/20/2011
Opus Corp. Quietly Settles Suit Filed by Subsidiary
The Star Tribune, citing “two people familiar with the case,” said that the two parties settled last month for $45 million; Opus West had accused its parent company of siphoning tens of millions of dollars and causing its demise.
Once-prominent developer Opus Corporation quietly settled a lawsuit brought by subsidiary Opus West, which claimed that it siphoned vast portions of Opus West earnings and kept the subsidiary in a constant state of financial dependency that ultimately led to bankruptcy.
{{Sounds like family court already, only played larger….}}
The case, which dates back to 2009, was officially dismissed April 29, according to court documents.
The parties aren’t revealing the terms of the settlement. But the Star Tribune, citing “two people familiar with the case,” said that they secretly settled last month in Dallas for $45 million. The case was set to go to trial within a matter of days.
About one-third of the settlement—or $15 million—will go to lawyers, the sources told the Minneapolis newspaper. Most of the remaining $30 million will reportedly go to the two largest creditors in Phoenix-based Opus West’s bankruptcy case: Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank. The two banks were collectively owed more than $260 million.
Approximately $3 million will be shared by about 150 Opus West employees who lost their jobs when the subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in 2009, according to the unnamed sources. ($3,000,000 / 150 = $300,000/15 = around $20,000 each, other things being equal (which they probably aren’t). Wonder how many lawyers were involved…
Opus West’s lawsuit claimed that Minnetonka [MN]-based Opus Corporation routinely engaged in “self-dealing transactions, blindly siphoning tens of millions of dollars that left Opus West with almost non-existent levels of working capital…”
{{Like I said, reminds me of conciliation court.}}
It went on to call the once-sterling reputation of the Rauenhorst family—which owns Opus Corporation—a “carefully-cultivated myth, an appealing veneer specifically designed to hide the true guiding ethos of the Rauenhorst business empire: to make sure the Rauenhorst family and their ultra-rich friends got rich and stayed rich.”
According to the suit, 10 percent of Opus West’s pretax income went to charity—and three-quarters of the subsidiary’s remaining income went to Opus Corporation. Opus Corporation and its executives knew that the payments were leaving Opus West “chronically undercapitalized,” according to Opus West’s complaint.
. . . .
Opus Corporation has since shut down and reorganized under a newly restructured parent company—Opus Holding, LLC. The assets of the two remaining subsidiaries were later bought by Opus Holding.
The Opus Group now includes Opus Holding, LLC, and Opus Holding, Inc., and their operating subsidiaries—Opus Development Corporation; Opus Design Build, LLC; and architectural arm Opus AE Group, Inc.
Legal battles for Opus haven’t ended with the recent settlement. The company still faces a lawsuit filed in July 2010 by 16 former Opus West employees who claim to be collectively owed $32.4 million in deferred compensation, bonuses, and pensions.
According to the complaint, Opus Corporation transferred more than $193.8 million of former subsidiary Opus West’s assets into family trusts linked to Opus founder Gerald Rauenhorst while failing to compensate Opus West employees.
—Christa Meland
Posted in
Thank you, Ms. Meland. Moral: Always! look up the businesses behind the people!
1999 Feature ARticle from “American Catholic” on the “Jesuit Gang Priest” and his work in East L.A. I’m sure he’s doing great work, but if he’s almost too busy to tell his story to the reporter here, how is he going to have time to effectively serve on this 2011 task force?
Pico Gardens and Aliso Village, sometimes called “The Projects,” is the largest tract of subsidized housing west of the Mississippi. This huge piece of social engineering hasn’t worked out so well. It’s poor, crowded and packed with gangs.
Some of Pico/Aliso overlaps Boyle Heights (different era, different Boyle). Within those 16 square miles, 60 gangs claim 10,000 members, Hispanic and black. This equals violence and plenty of action at the Hollenbeck division of the Los Angeles Police Department—if Father Greg Boyle doesn’t get there first…
Here he is giving a commencement address at Creighton U in 2009 (A Jesuit university in Omaha, NE . . . . HOW close to BoysTown is Creighton??)
And in 2011 getting the OPUS PRIZE $100,000 Opus Prize Recipient
Father Gregory Boyle, S.J.
Homeboy Industries
Los Angeles, United States
Fr. Greg Boyle grew up in the “gang capital of the world,” Los Angeles, California, just west of where he has spent more than 25 years ministering to the families of Dolores Mission parish, and mentoring hundreds of young people whose daily lives have been dominated by membership in neighborhood gangs. A Jesuit priest, he is the founder and Executive Director of Homeboy Industries, an organization that he created 23 years ago as a modest job training program in the east Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights that continues to be wracked by a seemingly unending cycle of gang violence and murder passed on from generation to generation.
Homeboy Industries — “Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job.” (tell that to the former employees of Opus West).
| Entity Number | Date Filed | Status | Entity Name | Agent for Service of Process |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C2226433 | 02/29/2000 | ACTIVE | HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES | LARRY KERVIN |
(EIN# 954800735, and it seems they are at least filing in CA. I used the Charity Research Tool)
| Year | IRS Process Date | Form | Type | Assets | |
| 2008 | 11/06/2009 | 990 | Initial Return | $12,635,874 | |
| 2007 | 01/17/2009 | 990 | Initial Return | $16,009,890 | |
| 2006 | 04/04/2008 | 990 | Initial Return | $16,070,640 | |
| 2005 | 08/25/2006 | 990 | Initial Return | $6,567,183 | |
| 2004 | 10/06/2005 | 990 | Initial Return | $2,982,741 | |
| 2003 | 09/10/2004 | 990 | Initial Return | $1,940,179 | |
| 2002 | 09/16/2003 | 990 | Initial Return | $2,148,684 |
WELL — with the IRS, but not with the STate. Someone needs to tell this prospering organization that CALIFORNIA gets some of the reporting, and fees, too, please! Status is still current, despite this pretty poor track record — as to the state level filings at least:
|
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(To read these, one probably has to search the group again on the “Registry Search” page for California) This little square, above, tells us that the 2011 winner of a $100K OPUS Prize, run by someone who just got appointed to help Defend Childhood and (see task force description), etc. — is himself running an operation which DOESN”T FILE ITS STATE TAX RETURNS, INCLUDING AFTER DELINQUENCY LETTER REQUESTS…. it is also engaging at least two professional fundraisers. . . . .
There are two Delinquency letters dating to 2009, including the 2nd one with a significant threat. No answer is posted, and this is now the end of 2011 and the charity is marked “current.” There has (meantime) also been a change of administration in the Office of Attorney General (which oversees), so presumably they either made peace with HomeBoy Industries, or it’s now too big to fail (note: Assets in 2007 were $15 million, Revenues $6 million — and they get a pass?) (This was a very tough time in many people’s lives — but as a foundation, well, what the heck….)
You know the routine — I’ve posted these before on my blog. (also posted to link in above chart. The link is inactive, but the description is viewable if you hover cursor over it without clicking):
HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES 130 W. BRUNO ST. LOS ANGELES CA 90012
State of California DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
1300 I Street P. O. Box 903447 Sacramento, CA 94203-4470 Telephone: (916) 445-2021 Ext 6 Fax: (916) 444-3651 E-Mail Address: Delinquency@doj.ca.gov
December 16, 2009 CT FILE NUMBER: 118772
RE: SECOND NOTICE : WARNING OF ASSESSMENT OF PENALTIES AND LATE FEES, AND SUSPENSION OF REGISTERED STATUS
Unless the above-described report(s) are filed with the Registry of Charitable Trusts within thirty (30) days of the date of this letter, the following will occur:
1. The California Franchise Tax Board will be notified to disallow the tax exemption of the above-named entity. In addition, the above-named entity will be billed $800 plus interest by Franchise Tax Board, which represents the minimum tax penalty. (See Revenue and Taxation Code section 23703).
2. Late fees will be imposed by the Registry of Charitable Trusts for each month or partial month for which the report(s) are delinquent. Directors, trustees, officers and return preparers
Doc CT-451A Warning Impend Tax Assess 2nd Notresponsible for failure to timely file these reports are also personally liable for payment of all late fees.
PLEASE NOTE: Charitable assets cannot be used to pay these avoidable costs. Accordingly, directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for failure to timely file the above-described report(s) are personally liable for payment of all penalties, interest and other costs incurred to restore exempt status.
3. In accordance with the provisions of Government Code section 12598, subdivision (e), the Attorney General will suspend the registration of the above-named entity.
As that is now TWO YEARS ago, either they complied — and no one has posted it yet; or the next Attorney General felt differently (and was too busy), or like I say, something else is up. Because as you and I can see — the OAG has not followed through with its warning. They are still marked “current.” Assuming they still ARE current, we can safely assume that such warnings are pretty meaningless, perhaps? They might affect a smaller group, but not one that is too closely linked with government operations, I’ll speculate. That’s speculate, but — what do you think? (Comments field available).
Tax returns should be looked at, and whether or not they are the finalized returns (complete with signature), etc. For example, I just looked at an (unsighed) 2008 return stating that the organization’s main operation was formerly a bakery, formed in 1994. That’s not what the date of incorporation shows above: it says 2000. In which case it’s been more than – not just about 11 years — in which this L.A. business has NOT been filing its returns (?). The 2008 return shows about $37K of “Donor Determined” vehicle donations, yet a 2010 letter shows that they omitted the “donated vehicle” question #8 on a state RRF that (for once) actually was sent in). These are definite red flags — and we’re to expect that a LARGE Hoop-law on thhis 13- member task force, recently appointed by US Attorney General Eric Holder (If I got WHo appointed it right) is to help somehow???
QUESTION; If they don’t notice things like this — which an amateur like myself can pick up IMMEDIATELY — out in the open (once I know enough to look) how do they plan to prevent things like abuse — where the perpetrators obviously are pretty smart and don’t want to get caught? Unless there is collaboration somewhere along the way….
So the question becomes, what is that “something else” that acounts for why HomeBoy Industries, given its resounding success, doesn’t have to take some of its millions of revenues — or sell off some of its larger millions of assets — to pay a tax return person? Also, it seems to me that above a certain level of funding (I DNR which) an orgnization ALSO has to hire an independent auditor for its financial statement (not that I see any financial statements here).
Why can individuals get thrown in jail for contempt of IRS (or, for that matter, a child support order), but charities — who cares? Perhaps the share is being obtained by some other method than traceable tax returns (and, perhaps not). All I know is, I sure don’t like it!
One more minor detail about this Homeboy Organization — it says it started the bakery operation in 1994 with the homeBOYS. That’s fine, why not (the Oakland area also had a Bakery operation: (Google Chauncey Bailey, Oakland, CA) you’ll read all about it). And then finally in 2004, something for the girls — which was restaurant/cafe. Boys create, Girls serve it up? Not to mention a 10 year gap?
SO NOW — HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? Since this is a DOJ task force, and clearly the person is working from Los Angeles, why wouldn’t someone run at least the 10 minute background check I just did (actually, a bit more) and figure out (which part took 2 minutes) that this organization isn’t filing? If he can’ handle or delegate someone to correctly file — with $12 million in assets — more than like 3 times in 10 years, why should he be put over a NATIONAL issue of this significance. Part of protecting the public has to include protecting them from public theft — which failure to file obviously puts us at risk from?
Oh — I forgot — this is in Los Angeles….
ANYHOW, here’s the Opus Prize:
And the Opus PRIZE: $1,000,000 (writeoff) per year, plus 2X $100,000:
The Opus Prize is given annually to recognize unsung heroes of any faith tradition, anywhere in the world. This $1 million faith-based humanitarian award and two $100,000 awards are collectively one of the world’s largest faith-based, humanitarian awards for social innovation. Father Greg is one of the two $100,000 Opus Prize finalists, the other is Sister Rita Pessoa, R.S.H.M. from the Association of Small Rural Producers of Jacare in Filadelfia, Brazil. The $1,000,000 grand prize winner announced on November 2 at Loyloa Marymount University is Lyn Lusi from Heal Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A big congratulations to all three leaders — “unsung heroes who are conquering the world’s persistent social problems, who have dedicated their lives to help tranform others.
The Prize’s Funding is the OPUS PRIZE FOUNDATION
Origins and Values
The Opus Prize Foundation is a private and independent nonprofit foundation. Established in 1994 by the founding chairman of Opus Corporation, the Opus Prize Foundation is a self-sufficient foundation independent from The Opus Group™.
The Opus Prize Foundation selects universities as partners to organize and execute the Opus Prize selection process and award ceremony. Through these partnerships, students are challenged to think globally and inspired to live lives of service.
The remaining members of the Task Force. Every One of these associations should be checked out. However, on the face of it — it’s celar that NOT ONE of them is reporting on the HHS fatherhood grants the Access Visitation grants (in any critical manner) or for that matter — specializing in issues relating to the family law venue. It’s like it just does not exist!
Sharon W. Cooper, M.D., CEO of Developmental & Forensic Pediatrics, P.A.
Dr. Cooper serves as a consultant and board member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).Sarah Deer, Citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma
Professor Deer is an assistant professor at William Mitchell College of Law and her scholarship focuses on the intersection of tribal law and victims’ rights.Deanne Tilton Durfee, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (ICAN)
Ms. Tilton Durfee also serves as Chairperson of the National Center on Child Fatality Review.Thea James, M.D., Director of the Boston Medical Center Massachusetts Violence Intervention Advocacy Program
Dr. James is Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine.Alicia Lieberman, Ph.D., Director of the Early Trauma Treatment Network
Dr. Lieberman is Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair of Infant Mental Health at UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Child Trauma Research Program, San Francisco General Hospital.Robert Macy, Ph.D., Founder, Director, and President of the International Center for Disaster Resilience-Boston
Dr. Macy is also the founder and Executive Director of the Boston Children’s Foundation and serves as Co-Director of the Division of Disaster Resilience at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.Steven Marans, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence
Dr. Marans is Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, and also serves as director of the Childhood Violent Trauma Center at Yale University.
The NCCEV was established in 1999 at the Yale Child Study Center by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This occurred in response to the pioneering success of the Yale Child Study Center’s Child Development-Community Policing Program (CD-CP), a community policing model first launched in 1991 in partnership with the City of New Haven and the New Haven Department of Police Service.
Supported by:
NCCEV is supported by grants from the U.S. Departments of Justice (OJJDP grant # 2005-JW-FX-K001) and Health and Human Services (SAMHSA grant # 5 U79 SM54318-06); U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Office of Domestic Preparedness: Urban Area Security Initative (UASI) Program; Pritzker Early Childhood Foundation; Seedlings Foundation & New Alliance Foundation
Jim McDonnell, Chief of Police, Long Beach Police Department, California
Chief McDonnell teaches public policy issues at UCLA and served with the LAPD for 28 years.Georgina Mendoza, J.D., Senior Deputy Attorney and Community Safety Director for the City of Salinas, California
Ms. Mendoza has been involved in the California Cities Gang Prevention Network for the past four years and serves as the Salinas lead in the White House’s National Forum on Youth Violence.Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, President of TDLS Consulting, LLC, and Chairman of Pan Pacific American Leaders and Mentors (PPALM)
General Taguba served 34 years on active duty, including serving as Deputy Commanding General for Support, Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC)/ARCENT/Third U.S. Army, forward deployed to Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A Retired Major General has earned his stripes, so to speak, and I think him for his service. However the nonprofit PPALM has NOT, yet. Look:
Pan-Pacific American Leaders & Mentors is an all-volunteer organization comprised of Military and Civilian professionals committed to mentoring and promoting professional development, retention and the advancement of Asian American Pacific Islander leaders – Active, Reserve, Army National Guard, and DoD Civilians. Pan-Pacific American Leaders & Mentors Organization is incorporated with the Commonwealth of Virginia (April 21, 2010) and approved by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization.
{{just barely — their meeting notes sound like they’re still working on it (See site)}}:
“At the Board of Directors meeting on November 19, 2011, we finalized the revised By Laws as required in the PPALM Strategic Plan 2011-2013, and in concert with IRS reporting requirements to maintain our tax exempt, non-profit status. This is to ensure PPALM is compliant within the established governance rules for the Board members and within the leadership, operations and fiscal functions currently and into the future.
We will announce elections of new Board members not later than January 20, 2012 and to be held not later than March 20, 2012. This will be done thru the PPALM website and other forms of notification. I will appoint new members of the nominating committee who will represent the interest of PPALM members at the national level. Written guidance will also be published to ensure we are compliant with the By Laws in electing new members of the BoD.”
{{But the ABOUT US says it was “activated” in November 2007. In what corporate format, and in which state?}}:
Complementing the Army Strong Campaign, PPALM was activated on November 11, 2007 to mentor and counsel US Army officers and civilians in achieving their career goals. While PPALM’s current focus in the US Army, we are expanding to include members of the other uniformed services. Membership is open to Veterans, National Guard, Reserve, Active Duty personnel, and Department of Defense Civilians. It is also open to spouses and supporters of PPALM’s goals and objectives.
(Virginia Corporations Search shows it incorporated (not as a nonprofit) 6/19/2007) and the Charities Search, that it hasn’t showed up yet as a Charity — although website has donation and membership collection pages already.) Virginia requires annual filings; there is no history (showing) of efilings so let’s presume they filed elsewhere that isn’t uploaded yet. 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and this is year 2011.
Pan Pacific American Leaders and Mentors
SCC ID: 06792519 Business Entity Type: Corporation Jurisdiction of Formation: VA Date of Formation/Registration: 6/19/2007 Status: Active Shares Authorized: 0
Filings for Corp ID: 06792519
AR Year Filing Date View Filing 2011 6/28/2011 Click Here To View Report 2010 4/21/2010 Click Here To View Report
LIKEWISE — TDLS CONSULTING, LLC — was also formed by Retired Major General Taguba, one year ago:
SCC ID: S3454347 Business Entity Type: Limited Liability Company Jurisdiction of Formation: VA Date of Formation/Registration: 11/23/2010 Status: Active
AGAIN — HERE’s ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT OF THIS TASK FORCE. Now it’s coming back to me; I remember protesting among on-line advocates; “Puh-LEEZ” stop begging the White House to help you. All they are going to do is form another initiative, appoint their cronies to it, and laugh there way to more retirement income (multiple streams) and/or grants-funded evaluations.
Department of Justice Announces the Defending Childhood Task Force
October 14, 2011
On October 13, 2011, the Department of Justice issued the following press release:
WASHINGTON – Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli today announced the establishment of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence. The task force is part of the Attorney General’s Defending Childhood initiative, a project arising from the need to respond to the epidemic levels of exposure to violence faced by our nation’s children.
“Our vision of justice must start with preventing crime before it happens, protecting our children, and ending cycles of violence and victimization. Every young person deserves the opportunity to grow and develop free from fear of violence,” said Associate Attorney General Perrelli. “The task force will develop knowledge and spread awareness about the pervasive problem of children’s exposure to violence – this will ultimately improve our homes, cities, towns and communities.”
Following the release of the compelling findings of the first National Survey on Children Exposed to Violence (2009), Attorney General Eric Holder launched the Defending Childhood initiative in September 2010. The goals of the initiative are to prevent children’s exposure to violence as victims and witnesses, reduce the negative effects experienced by children exposed to violence, and develop knowledge about and increase awareness of this issue.
The Defending Childhood Task Force is composed of 14 leading experts from diverse fields and perspectives, including practitioners, child and family advocates, academic experts and licensed clinicians. Joe Torre, Major League Baseball Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, founder of the Joe Torre Safe at Home® Foundation, and a witness to domestic violence as a child himself, will serve as the co-chair of the task force.
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder today officially unveiled Defending Childhood, a new Department of Justice initiative focused on addressing children’s exposure to violence. The goals of the initiative are to prevent children’s exposure to violence as victims and witnesses, mitigate the negative effects experienced by children exposed to violence, and develop knowledge about and increase awareness of this issue.
What’s WiTh our society’s always figuring out we can pay someone to do our monitoring, prevention, enforcement, defence (including of Childhood), protection (including of Children), and so forth? The more money is extracted to supposedly stop all this (see CAPTA, 1974) — the less responsibility the cash-drained individuals locally can, really, be expected to take for it. After all — they paid, right? What are police for? What is CPS for? What are Judges for, what are prisons for, and all the other superstructure and infrastructure.
What makes us think that the massive infrastructure, as great as it is at wiretapping, computer hacking, monitoring who signs what books out of the library (talking more general here, obviously), and did I mention what happens when people try to get on an airplane flight? (Like the Mom who was forced to pour out her breast milk, and punished for complaining about the process on a return trip, see courthousenews). — what makes us even THINK that this is going to change Business As Usual?
WILL EVEN FEDERAL LAWSUITS — and I HOPE this one produces some remedies — STEM THE TIDE OF HUMAN FOOLISHNESS ABOUT WHO ELSE IS GONNA DO WHAT WE OUGHT TO DO FOR OURSELVES, BY KNOWING OUR NEIGHBORS, INBETWEEN RUNNING OFF TO JOBS TO FUND THE SYSTEM THAT IS PROMISING MORE JOBS — BUT INSTEAD DELIVERING GRANTS TO JUST ABOUT ANYBODY WHO KNOWS HOW TO INCORPORATE — AND PRIZES TO GROUPS THAT DON’T FILE TAXES YEAR AFTER YEAR, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE LOCAL CONTRACTS (Homeboy Industries seems to have one with City of Los Angeles or County — see the tax returns) AND POSSIBLY OTHER FEDERAL GRANTS?
| Recipient Name | City | State | ZIP Code | County | DUNS Number | Sum of Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homeboy Industries | LOS ANGELES | CA | 900121815 | LOS ANGELES | 874873987 | $ 799,988 |
Did it occur to either of the principal investigators of this grant’s projects below to check up on the organizations tax filing status?
Grantee Class Award Number Award Title Action Issue Date Principal Investigator Sum of Actions 2011 SAMHSA Homeboy Industries Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations TI022609 PROJECT STAR (SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT AND RECOVERY) 05/19/2011 FAJIMA BEDRAN $ 0 2011 SAMHSA Homeboy Industries Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations TI022609 PROJECT STAR (SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT AND RECOVERY) 06/27/2011 FAJIMA BEDRAN $ 399,994 2010 SAMHSA Homeboy Industries Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations TI022609 PROJECT STAR (SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT AND RECOVERY) 09/29/2010 MARNEY STOFFLET $ 399,994 (SAMHSA grants, 2010 and 2011 — even though the California OAG dinged this group the same year and earlier on nonfiling) for Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery, or some such. Take that “DUNS” # over to USASPENDING.gov and find out what else, if anything.
Well, it’s the end of my blogging day which started with concern about THIS:
PROJECT PIERRE TOUSSAINT victim’s FEDERAL LAWSUIT:
JOSEPH JEAN-CHARLES, a/k/a JEAN-CHARLES JOSEPH,
Plaintiff
v.
DOUGLAS PERLITZ; FATHER PAUL E. CARRIER, S.J.; HOPE E. CARTER; HAITI FUND, INC.; FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY; THE SOCIETY OF JESUS OF NEW ENGLAND; JOHN DOE ONE; JOHN DOE TWO; JOHN DOE THREE; JOHN DOE FOUR; JOHN DOE FIVE; JOHN DOE SIX; JOHN DOE SEVEN; JOHN DOE EIGHT; JOHN DOE NINE; JOHN DOE TEN; JOHN DOE ELEVEN; AND JOHN DOE TWELVE,
CIVIL ACTION NO.
Defendants
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
COMPLAINT AND JURY TRIAL DEMAND
COMPLAINT AND JURY TRIAL DEMAND
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Defendants Douglas Perlitz, Father Paul E. Carrier, S.J., Fairfield University and other Defendants established a residential school in the Republic of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This school, Project Pierre Toussaint, purported to provide services to the poorest children of Haiti, many of whom lacked homes and regular meals. Defendant Douglas Perlitz was the director in Haiti of Project Pierre Toussaint, which provided him with an image of substantial trust and authority. Defendant Douglas Perlitz used that trust and authority, with the assistance of other Defendants to sexually molest Plaintiff and numerous other minor boys who attended Project Pierre Toussaint. Defendant Douglas Perlitz was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. §2423(b), Travel With Intent To Engage In Illicit Sexual Conduct. In molesting Plaintiff, Defendant Douglas Perlitz was aided by the intentional or negligent acts of the other Defendants. Plaintiff seeks damages for Plaintiff’s personal injuries pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §2255 and common law.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
That’s about how most abusive systems get their start, seems to me. Anyone who is intending to get access to kids, a flow of them, to molest and abuse has to have at least enough strategic organizing ability to know where to get the vulnerable kids, how to convince some people with the money that your real intent is to HELP them, not to – – E W them (i.e., use them carnally, and allow others to). In addition such personalities also need to have – or associate with people who have — knowledge of incorporations, how to get a nonprofit status & board together, and start fundraising.
FOR EXAMPLE TAKE DOUG PERLITZ & FRIENDS, who I see have been sued in Federal Court in New Haven, Connecticut. My post today started here — because I browse Courthouse Forum News in general. See my Dec. 2, 2011 post, Outrageous Outreach Activities in Haiti //Project Pierre Toussaint. I will be coming back to this — but it’s a long introduction. One thing someone forgot to consider when structuring a family court system that eliminates fully-adult mothers (like me) from their primary occupation — taking care of and fighting for their kids’ welfare — and often the secondary one, called normal employment (which often is a battle casualty) — is that, if we are not homeless or dead in the process, that leaves us a lot to think about, and some time to think about it in, time which otherwise would be involved in seeing one’s own children regularly! And in the process of this thinking, we come with some very unique analyses and creative thinking on how to make sure this type of scam is stopped, permanently, from occurring again in the U.S.
USUALLy our creative thinking — the best of it anyhow — doesn’t come up by repeating the same processes that enabled the abuse to start wtih, such as assuming someone else in the public domain is going to do their job right, or that the systems that be even allow them to actually DO what their appointed job’s title allegedly is for. Like, for example, “Children’s Protection Services,” ethically, honestly and effectively? (you answer that question on your spare time….don’t forget to go ask Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer, or at least what remains of her pre-murder communications on-line, said murder having happened while she was in the process of investigating and reporting on CPS abuses in her state).
ANYHOW, for those who by definition don’t have access to religiously-sanctioned normal marital relationships and a lifelong partnership for normal sexual relationships with consenting adults, other options are alas, sought.
And what better place to do such things and find such unprotected children than “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”??
1. Defendants Douglas Perlitz, Father Paul E. Carrier, S.J., Fairfield University and other Defendants established a residential school in the Republic of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This school, Project Pierre Toussaint, purported to provide services to the poorest children of Haiti, many of whom lacked homes and regular meals. Defendant Douglas Perlitz was the director in Haiti of Project Pierre Toussaint, which provided him with an image of substantial trust and authority. . .
And what better type or organization to do this than being a priest? (exception; Being certain types of Congressional legislators or other powerful civic leaders — see The Franklin Coverup).
HOW FEDS STOP THINGS THEY DON’T APPROVE OF, EVEN IF IT’S LEGAL IN SOME STATES:
TO CONTROL ALLEGED OR REAL ABUSE OF TRAFFICKING IN SUBSTANCES — WHEN THE FEDS ARE ACTUALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS, WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY GO FOR THE JUGULAR — THE CASH FLOW!
For example*, California has its fights over legalization of medical marijuana, and one dispensary is fighting the feds to stay open, apparently. Here’s their site: http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/ and here’s how the Feds are trying to stop distribution, even in states which have legalized it, as reported in July 18, 2011 MiamiHerald(.com): “Federal medical marijuana memo stirs angst in industry”
(*and don’t think that this is something I’m following closely. I have a wide-ranging field of vision and simply happen to live in California which, unlike being a mother in the family court system, doesn’t per se make me a “criminal” to be restrained. I actually look at the news . . . . and bring this up for a teaching point about a different topic).
By Peter Hecht The Sacramento Bee
In October 2009, medical marijuana advocates celebrated a U.S. Department of Justice memo declaring that federal authorities wouldn’t target the legal use of medicinal pot in states where it is permitted.
The memo from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden was credited with accelerating a California medical marijuana boom, including a proliferation of dispensaries that now handle more than $1 billion in pot transactions.
But last month brought a new memo from another deputy attorney general, James Cole. And this time, it is stirring industry fears of federal raids on pot dispensaries and sweeping crackdowns on large-scale medical pot cultivation. Cole asserted in the June 29 memo that state laws “are not a defense” from federal prosecution, saying, “Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug” – and that distributing it “is a serious crime.”Justice Department officials said the memo offered “guidance” for states permitting medical marijuana and didn’t mark a harsher shift in federal policy. But it was a clear signal of the government’s concern about a move toward industrial-scale operations that would generate millions of dollars in revenue.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/18/2318955/federal-medical-marijuana-memo.html#storylink=cpy
The federal government is always going to be interesting in anything that generates millions of $$ of revenue. . . . . So are City Goverments. It’s as much about who gets to control & regulate the funding as about the harm to citizens, if you ask me. Generally speaking:
In February, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag in San Francisco declared that the Justice Department was “considering civil and criminal remedies” against anyone trying to set up “industrial marijuana-growing warehouses in Oakland.” The Alameda County district attorney* warned that meant public officials weren’t immune from prosecution.Oakland City Councilwoman Patricia Kernighan said the city hasn’t given up on taxing and licensing medical marijuana cultivation.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/18/2318955/federal-medical-marijuana-memo.html#storylink=cpy
*re: “Alameda County District Attorney” — search the term “Steve Boatbrain” (investigative reporting on IndyMedia, will bring up my blogs on the One-Stop Justice Shop, and I just saw another older result from San Mateo, County (California) on greatly reduced bail for accused child molester/Child Psychiatrist Ayres — who was being fed victims (per the active comments field analysis) from the Juvenile Court. See comments thread 21-48 for Boatbrain input — but it sure does make one think): “Hunched over and clad in an orange jumpsuit, a prominent child psychiatrist charged with 14 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with three children under the age of 14 stood before a judge Friday . . . .” and among the comments, Blogger “Here They Go Again” April 7, 2007, writes:
It is interesting that this accused child molester was commending him for his “commitment to children” by none other than the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and had clients (victims) referred to him by Juvenile Court Supervising Judge Marta Diaz, Chief Probation Officer Loren Buddress, and Gerry Hilliard, managing attorney for the Private Defender Program in juvenile court and now he gets a reduction in bail from $1.5 million to $250,000 by San Mateo Superior Court Judge Thomas McGinn Smith. I guess these folks stick pretty close together.
What type of people do we have running San Mateo County’s government? It appears that the reckless and grossly negligent decisions and actions by people in positions of power in San Mateo County’s government are endangering the community.
Maybe it is time for the FBI to investigate San Mateo’s County government?
AND, a little later, commenter “Happy1” writes:
The biggest problem in this case is that the judges themselves are involved because they and their associates in the juvenile justice system were feeding this guy victims. Now, they appear to be getting together and participating in a whitewash by reducing his bail to a ridiculously low level and working behind the scenes to help him.
By helping this guy, isn’t the San Mateo County judiciary making itself part and parcel of the child molestation problem?
SAN MATEO is a county south of SAN FRANCISCO which is just a little west of the East Bay’s ALAMEDA COUNTY. In Pennsylvania, there were also some judges feeding juveniles — without due process -to institutions the same judges had a financial interest in. You think that’s just in PA? Follow the nonprofits ! ! !
Someone then (we’re talking 2007) called the blogger a crazy (paranoid conspiracy delusion) and got this response:
Fred-o wrote:paranoid conspiracy delusion.Read the papers fool. This creep’s victims were referred to him by the San Mateo County Courts and Juvenile Probation Department.
To which conversation “George” from Seattle, WA (a few months later — June 2007) added:
Cinque- If you read the papers, you will see that boys came forward in the 1980s shortly after they were molested. The police did nothing. That’s why they are coming forward again.
and eventually (Sept. 2007) Mr. Boatbrain:
I want to be absolutely sure on this, Judge Thomas Smith in the past referred boys directly to Dr. Ayres, and now he is not recusing himself from this case? That smells bad, doesn’t it? I am not saying he did anything wrong, but he should not be on this case.
In fact, it sounds like the Attorney General should be handling this altogehter with all these connections between people.
(ALL font changes, italics, underlining, bolding etc. added by me — not the posters).
Let’s think (briefly, here) about the role of the top of the Law Enforcement Pyramid in any state: Attorney General. They are over District Attorneys and a whole lot more. I used to believe (not understanding except by unfortunate experience — see child-stealing — the supreme amount of discretion District Attorneys have in whether to prosecute or NOT prosecute. As such they are very powerful when it comes to protecting (or not) women & children. See Sonoma County nonprofit site “Justicewomen.org” on this one, and I’ve blogged it too.
I had had children taken on overnight visitation –completely illegally — no factual or legal justification ever given by any judge, and I had contacted District Attorneys in more than one county (who I understood to be responsible in prosecuting criminal matters, or getting someone to HELP ME recover access to the children, when it was a clear violation of existing court order). This was somehow mixed in with very abusive treatment by their underlings, county sheriffs and police, in the matters leading up to the situation of an entirely preventable crime. I’m starting, gradually, to comprehend that the phrase “District Attorney” includes the words “Attorney” and the word “District” simply refers to their territory, turf, and essentially fiefdom.
Regarding the Attorney General should be investigating, that term — while now in California it’s Kamala Harris, who is going to have her hands full if she seeks to ever fully follow up on unregistered or just ain’t filing with the state charities in the state continuing to do business — sometimes WITH THE COURTS & PROBATION– and seek donations. And one of whose employees (Fay) just had a young girl kidnapped on court-ordered visitation, not returned, and discovered too late as the “murder” victim in a murder-suicide (Samaan/Fay), previously we are talking about Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose wife Nadya was somehow shuffled to the front of the pack to take over this ONE_STOP_JUSTICE_SHOP in Alameda County, which I’ve blogged on as well. See my blog or, as I said, google the phrase “steve boatbrain” who obviously has his brain in operation on these matters, too. Thanks, mister!
CHARITIES THAT DON’T FILE ARE UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL:
By habitually, and at some point I have to say intentionally refusing or failing to file properly with the Office of Attorney General, these groups are depriving the public, including the taxpayers, of the opportunity to review their tax returns, sometimes their articles of incorporation, or other sources to check who is on their boards, to verify if what’s said on the websites is true, or junk information, and connections between multiple organizations with similar board members. Which is already hard enough to do on the California Secretary of State Business search site — which doesn’t enable ANY search by incorporator (i.e, person/business who set up the corp.), or even by EIN#!
FROM THE BIBLE: “HE THAT IS FAITHFUL IN THAT WHICH IS LEAST. . .”
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Evaluate, Coordinate, call “Alienator!” Pt. 4– Three AFCC Ph.D.’s on ONE case & “PAS” = 2011 NH Supreme Court custody reversal. And what’s Warshak got to do with it? [First publ. June 15, 2011, not on blog TOC yet].
This post title with a “shortlink” attached is:
Evaluate, Coordinate, call “Alienator!” Pt. 4– Three AFCC Ph.D.’s on ONE case & “PAS” = 2011 NH Supreme Court custody reversal. And what’s Warshak got to do with it? [First publ. June 15, 2011, not on blog TOC yet]. (WordPress-generated, case-sensitive shortlink ends “-JR”. Note: for normal URLs (web addresses), upper or lower case alpha doesn’t seem to matter, but I’ve learned that within this domain (WordPress) and in such short-links, it does.
LGH UPDATE NOTE: My current table of contents only goes back to Sept., 2012; this is a June 15, 2011 post (early on in this blogger’s learning curve!) so would only be found by search, some other link reference to it, or by Year/Month/Date through the “Archives” (by month) on this blog.
I added some quick (not thorough) updates on Overcoming Barriers at the bottom in response to a comment submitted March, 2016…including tax returns, California corporate registration (Massachusetts could also be searched).
For a December 2017 Update (which at first I thought might fit in here), see:
I was just going to add a very short update (that comment, it seems, in March 2016), but instead added a section on renewed Parental Alienation discussions, and the socialist “re-education camps” in Viet Nam after South fell to the North, in 1975. Similar in other countries. Major quality and scope difference — but force is force, and at some levels, it’s also a form of psychological, personal violence. In my opinion. So, the original (written/published in 2011) post begins in maroon font and below a double-line after the following paragraphs and a few quotes:
Speaking of how to continue keeping “Parental Alienation” conversation going — and ordering services to undo it through the family courts — I recently noticed that a “Dr. Craig Childress” (Craig A. Childress, Psy.D.) is resurrecting parental alienation under a different theory; I have some comments on it over at Red Herring Alert (a wordpress blog). “Same old, same old” with new window dressing and tactics (Childress recommends pressuring providers who do NOT recommend IMMEDIATE, safety-for-the-child total separation from the alienating parent (i.e., “mom” typically) through their licensing board, if this could be categorized under some existing DSM-defined disorder.
You cannot really argue with self-referencing, self-congratulating circles of experts on this matter which is why I recommend a more interesting angle of approach: If they incorporate, find tax returns and corporate records; if they get contracts with the courts, or government grants to run “reunification camps” and similar therapy for parental alienation (in its old or new classifications), pay attention to the details!
The technique and ability to re-indoctrinate people in groups, as well as children, was also in common use in socialist countries; I believe the term used was “re-education camps,” referring to those in South Viet Nam after the fall of Saigon in 1975: Search “Vietnamese Re-Education Camps: A Brief History” (that’s supplemental reading, from a man’s father’s oral history — he lived through such camps — from “Choices” program at Brown; see website) or “Vietnamese Re-Education Camps” from “VietNamWar.info.”
The second link introduces and describes the various levels. I wonder, in the USA, why the country is so heavily invested in a class of professionals whose purpose seems to be behavioral change and keeping up-to-date with tactics and strategies for re-indoctrinating children, women and men into their proper social relationships with each other and particularly after one or more of the same has spoken out about some prior injustice, or sought to escape being subjected to abuse by a family member. These camps apparently went on from 1975 – 1986 until people still being held were allowed to emigrate to the US.
“Vietnamese Re-Education Camps” from “VietNamWar.info.” Posted 4/17/2014 by “kubia”
Following the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, Vietnamese Communist government began to open hundreds of “re-education” camps throughout the country. Those camps, as Hanoi officially claimed, were places where individuals could “learn about the ways of the new government” through education and socially constructive labor.
In 1975, it was estimated that around 1 to 2.5 million people1, including former officers, religious leaders, intellectuals, merchants, employees of the old regime, and even some Communists, entered the camps in the hope that they could quickly reconcile with the new government and continued their peaceful life. However, their time in those camps did not last for ten days or two weeks as the government had claimed.
Re-education Camps Levels
The re-education camps were organized into five levels. The level-one camps which were called as study camps or day-study centers located mainly in major urban centers, often in public parks, and allowed attendees to return home each night. In those camps, some 500,000 people2 were instructed about socialism, new government policy in order to unlearn their old ways of thinking. The level-two camps had a similar purpose as the level-one, but attendees were not allowed to return home for three to six months. During the 1970s, at least 200,000 inmates entered more than three hundred level–two camps2.
The level-three re-education camps, known as the socialist-reform camps, could be found in almost every Southern Vietnam province containing at least 50,000 inmates2. Most of them were educated people and thus less susceptible to manipulation than most South Vietnamese in the level-one and two camps. Therefore, the inmates (or prisoners) in these camps had to suffer poorer living conditions, forced labor and daily communist indoctrination.
The last two types of camps were used to incarcerate more “dangerous” southern individuals – including writers, legislator teachers, supreme court judges, province chiefs – until the South was stable to permit their release. By separating members of certain social classes of the old regime, Hanoi wanted to prevent them from conducting joint resistances and forced them to conform to the new social norms. In 1987, at least 15,000 “dangerous” persons were still incarcerated level-four and level-five camps2.
Camp Conditions and Deaths
In most of the re-education camps, living conditions were inhumane. Prisoners were treated with little food, poor sanitation, and no medical care3. They were also assigned to do hard and risky work such as clearing the jungle, constructing barracks, digging wells, cutting trees and even mine field sweeping without necessary working equipments.
Although those hard work required a lot of energy, their provided food portions were extremely small. As a prisoner recall, the experience of hunger dominated every man in his camp. Food was the only thing they talked about. Even when they were quiet, food still haunted their thoughts, their sleep and their dreams. Worse still, various diseases such as malaria, beriberi and dysentery were widespread in some of the camps. As many prisoners were weakened by the lack of food, those diseases could now easily take away their lives.
Starvation diet, overwork, diseases and harshly punishment resulted in a high death rate of the prisoners. According to academic studies of American researchers, a total of 165,000 Vietnamese people died in those camps4.
The End of “Re-education” Period
Most of the re-education camps were operated until 1986 when Nguyen Van Linh became the General Secretary of the Communist Party. He began to close the harsher camps and reformed the others5. Two year later, Washington and Hanoi reached an agreement that Vietnam would free all former soldiers and officials of the old regime who were still held in re-education camps across the country and allowed them to emigrate to the United States under the Orderly Departure Program (ODP). As of August 1995, around 405,000 Vietnamese prisoners and their families were resettled in the U.S6.
– See more at: thevietnamwar.info/vietnamese-re-education-camps/..
The forced “Reunification Camps” (far less harsh, but still forced, and still designed to produce an attitude change) have their professionals willing to engage in these practices.
I think it must take a certain kind of mentality, if not personality aberrancy, to believe in this and what’s more preach about it and take in business to engage in it.
For some reason, those “Re-education camps” remind me of, though lesser in degree, the same idea as, for example, “overcoming barriers.” It’s still based on force — and who knows how many similar programs are operating around the country. As I write this, the Grazzini-Rucki runaway teens were reported (in 2016) to being re-indoctrinated to like their father (who they’d run away from as young teens), while the mother, until recently, was incarcerated for parental interference. See my more recent 2016 posts).
Here’s a sample. I see he’s from Pasadena, California (Los Angeles area). To see it in better formatting (the “copy” function sometimes removes all spaces between words!) click on link:
C. A. CHILDRESS, Psy.D.LICENSED CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, PSY 18857
547 S. MARENGO DR., STE 105 • PASADENA, CA 91101 • (909) 821-5398Page 1 of 10DSM-5 Diagnosis of “ParentalAlienation”
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Let’s Eliminate OCSE — the Office of Child Support Enforcement — and why.
No, that’s not a joke. I’m serious.
Or, we could just continue to watch this institution gradually eliminate the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution, in fact the entire concept of individual rights whatsoever, in favor of social(ism) science run amok.
This post also ran amok (as you can see) but the links are valuable.
The OCSE has to go. It’s out of control, and is hurting men, women, and children — generation after generation– while loudly proclaiming it is, instead, helping society, families and kids.
WHAT DO YOU WANT — A SOCIAL SCIENCE SOCIETY, OR LIBERTY?
Obviously, it’s either/or, not Compromise/And. Even the experts know this:
Do government sponsored marriage promotion policies place undue pressure on individual rights?
Abstract
The dominance of social science research in the debate over the Bush Administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative may explain why questions regarding the proper role of government in regulating adult intimacy (!!!) have received little attention. Social science research focuses on outcomes such as well-being and health. In contrast, rights-based legal theory considers whether state action undermines the rights of individuals. In this article, I intend to shift the debate over marriage promotion policy from questions of child well-being to questions of individual rights. I will ask the following questions: Do individuals have a liberty interest in making their own choices about intimate relationships, such as marriage? Do federally-financed (and frequently state-run) marriage programs compromise this liberty interest? Are there any constitutional grounds for objecting to marriage promotion policy?
Either we recover the OCSE from its fatherhood-dispensing-propaganda (and fundings) — repeal (or defund) the Access/Visitation grants system entirely. There is no question, whatever its grandiose proclamations, the system is rife with corruption, has failed, and hasn’t even reduced TANF, allegedly the purpose for its existence.
Let alone the dubious ROI for this agency — Can you spell Four Billion?
Yes, +/- Four Billion (federal incentives), courtesy the IRS, to fix families, support children by adding “fatherhood.” which as I point out elsewhere, is one of several “hoodlums” used to justify stealing time and money from honest people and transferring them to dishonest.
$4,000,000,000
I’ve uploaded (hopefully) and linke two PDFs to this post to illustrate the cost and the personnel investing themselves into the system. One is primarily charts the other, primarily rhetoric. Please browse the Dept of HHS/Administration for Children and Families (“ACF”)
(Federal)
PAYMENTS TO STATES FOR CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS, including for FY 2012, and historic back to 2002. Its charts speak loudly as well as this paragraph justifying some of the expense:
Promoting Access and Visitation. The budget provides $570 million over ten years to support increased access and visitation services and integrates these services into the core child support program. The first step in facilitating a relationship between non-custodial parents and their children is updating the statutory purposes of the CSE program to recognize the program’s evolving mission and activities that help parents cooperate and support their children. The proposal also requires states to establish access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders. The proposal also would encourage states to undertake activities that support access and visitation. Implementing domestic violence safeguards is a critical component of this new state responsibility. These services not only will improve parent-child relationships and outcomes for children, but they also will {{??}} result in improved collections. Research shows that when fathers are engaged in the lives of their children, they are more likely to {{or is it “will”?? the program has been going on over 15 years. Don’t we know which it is yet — “more likely to,” or “will”?}}meet their financial obligations. This creates a “double win” for children – an engaged parent and more financial security.
and paragraphs like this:
Budget Request – The FY 2012 request for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support programs of $3.8 billion reflects current law of $3.5 billion adjusted by +$305 million assuming Congressional action on several legislative proposals, including those supporting a newly proposed Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative. The Budget promotes strong family relationships by encouraging fathers to take responsibility for their children, improving distribution policies so that more of the support fathers pay reaches their children, and continuing a commitment to vigorous enforcement. The Budget increases support for states to pass through child support payments to families, rather than retaining those payments and requires states to establish access and visitation arrangements as a means of promoting father engagement in their children’s lives.*** The Budget also provides a temporary increase in incentive payments to states based on performance, which continues an emphasis on program outcomes and efficiency and will foster enforcement efforts.
**(This program has been known to promote mother ABSENCE from lives of the children after custody-switching enabled through mis-use of program funds in conflicts-of-interest with custody hearings…Despite more and more mothers becoming noncustodial, this program still remains father-centric. )
Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative
The CSE program plays an important role in facilitating family self-sufficiency and promoting responsible fatherhood. Building on this role, the FY 2012 budget includes a new Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative to encourage non-custodial parents to work, support their children, and play an active role in their children’s lives.
After I sent this document to Liz Richards, of NAFCJ.net, I got the following response:
OCSE cannot override federal and state law; it cannot initiate legal disputes without the approval of both the assumed litigants. It cannot override standing court orders.
But this IS what the OCSE agency and been doing for years – and they believe they can get away with this fraud, because nobody is scrutinizing them.You should not believe anything they claim about their policies and procedures which sounds good. They have been hiding their corruption with “sounds good” analysis for as long as I’ve been following them. They say one thing – and do the opposite.
Of the hundreds of women who contacted me each year, some are custodial mothers, and nearly none of them actually collect the support owed to them.
The local state agencies stonewall them for months and even years.Once woman with a N. CA child support case got told by the San Fransico c.s. agency they couldn’t send her the support check because they hadn’t [earned] enough interest on it yet. After she made strong complaints about this dishonest practice – they sent a check a few days later.
The OCSE even admits they have a policy of “retaining” undistributed but collected support to earn interest on it and to declare it “abandoned” and split this collected money 60/40 between the federal and state c.s. agencies. (eg illegal confiscation of other people’s money).*** Even the HHS General Counsel, David Cade, admit to me this was the official policy.
I believe the whole agency should be shut down and the few vital services they have be transferred to Dept of Treasury.
Liz Richards
(**great example discovered by Richard Fine, resulting in the infamous Silva v. Garcetti lawsuit. This extremely disturbing case over county abuse of privilege in MILLION$$ IN L.A. County CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS ALREADY COLLECTED shows how corruption responds to corruption uncovered — Mr. Fine in jail, an attempt to intimidate him and a warning to others who might think to follow in his footsteps. As far as I can tell, this case was eventually dropped, although eventual Mr. Fine was released from solitary coercive confinement, at age 70!)
(This BUDGET document is found at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/olab/budget/2012/cj/CSE.pdf)
AGAIN — what ROI, what overall good really comes out of this department, as reported by anyone who is not in on some of its many scams? She writes: “I believe the whole agency should be shut down and the few vital services they have be transferred to Dept of Treasury.”
I’m so glad she’s come around to my way of thinking, after I read enough rhetoric to gag on justifying the elimination of child support for most kids, and the inability of actual, legitimate abused children and/or spouses (primarily mothers) to EVER get free from abuse, resulting sometimes in their deaths at the hands of a father over a court-ordered visitation and after death threats and molestation had already been identified. Alternately, they can just be impoverished needlessly, and society can be robbed of working parents while these parents instead go to court and suffer more legal abuse and trauma, often for years.
I ALSO UPLOADED a “Reviving Marriage in America: Strategies for Donors” philanthropy roundtable talking about the foundations backing to these movements. File it under “what your social worker and child support advocate, your local domestic violence agency, or local legal aid office, didn’t and won’t tell you — but should have — about who’s really behind the fatherhood movement.“)
Looking at both these documents, I have to ask: how much priming the pump is needed to produce a few good fathers, or get child support enforced? Are these indeed producing good fathers, and if not, who gives a damn? The jet-setting, conference-presenting, politically connected fatherhood program administrators? The family law judges, attorneys, evaluators (basically, all AFCC membership categories) whose nonprofits profit from this arrangement? The funeral homes, who get extra business when some Dad goes haywire after separation? The press, who reports the casualties?
An article from the “Institute for Democracy Studies” (Sept. 2001, VOl. 2, issue 1), lead article by a “Lewis C. Daly” focused on the “Charitable Choice: The Architecture of a Social Policy Revolution” cites the Bradley Foundation’s influence, and provides a flowchart with National Fatherhood Initiative and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives central underneath. They point out the “Heritage Foundation” connection (which I’ve noticed) and that a certain Kay James (directing the US Office of Personnel Management at the time — and as such placing “vast numbers of individuals throughout the White House national security apparatus, government agencies (etc.) ) endorsed the resolution of the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention (regarding wifely submission to husbands) — an endorsement that caused former President Carter to resign from this group in protest of its treatment of women.
“O Say Can You See?” what’s happened to the “land of the free” (or even the concept of the land of the free….)
“OCSE”: CLEAN IT UP OR SHUT IT DOWN:
The more I read about this, the more outraged I get at tax dollars being used for social science rhetoric — most of it a combination of belief, myth, and confusion of results with causes.
- While promising delivery on child support — the fact is, it extorts both mothers and fathers in the courts to consume services and classes they don’t need, such as parenting education classes produced by judges-and-attorney-run nonprofits with unholy alliances with the family courts (kids turn, etc.). (Kids Turn & look-alikes)
- It s a guaranteed formula for reducing and eliminating child support, sold under the guise of doing the opposite.
- The Access Visitation grants system, per se, while not huge — is the doorway to ever-expanding initiatives (fatherhood, marriage-promotion, etc.) — that undermine due process and individual rights.
- Its own regulations indicate that the purpose of this grants system enables ONE Person in ONE Executive Branch Office to run demonstration social science projects on the populace, through the states, as I have pointed out before in reviewing 45 CFR 303.109: As such, it’s anti-democratic, and contrary to the purpose of having three separate branches of government, which was to counter potential tyranny. Section (a) basically says, there’s a need to monitor these grants. Here’s (b):
(b) Evaluation. The State: (1) May evaluate all programs funded under Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs; (2) Must assist in the evaluation of significant or promising projects as determined by the Secretary; (of HHS).
“Before his current post, he helped create and was director of the Texas Fragile Families Initiative, a statewide project involving community-based, faith-based, and public agencies to support fragile families.”
For Dr. Ronald B. Mincy, Saving `Fragile Families’ is Personal
by Michele N-K Collison
Black people will never reach economic parity if Black children have to depend on one income and White children depend on two,” says Mincy, the architect of the foundation’s “Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative.“
The multi-million dollar initiative focuses on increasing research about these poor fathers and their families, and working with policy-makers to create policies that encourage unwed parents to work together for the benefit of their children.Since 1994, the Ford Foundation has spent a total of roughly $14.5 million on this issue. It is one of too few major foundations, according to Mincy, engaged in this work.
These days Mincy crisscrosses the nation giving speeches and meeting with child support officials and advocates for fathers as he tries to take advantage of the convergence of circumstances that has made fatherhood the issue de jour.
But there is a compelling personal reason why Mincy is so interested in this issue — he also grew up without his father. …
After graduating from Harvard, Mincy went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his doctorate in economics in 1987. He taught economics at Swarthmore College, the University of Delaware, and Bentley College, before heading to the Urban Institute in 1987.
{{“obviously” no father in the home dooms a child to academic, professional and financial failure, case in point.}}
While at the Urban Institute, Mincy directed a policy-research project on the urban underclass. His work on poor, unwed families caught the attention of the Clinton administration and he led the Noncustodial Parents Issue Group for the Presidents Welfare Reform taskforce. The group’s mission was to figure out how welfare reform could accommodate poor men. His experiences in the Clinton administration laid the groundwork for the Fragile Families Initiative.
He’s now at Columbia, degreed, decorated, publishing and promoting. Note the Foundation Connection throughout ….
Bio:
Dr. Ronald Mincy teaches Introduction to Social Welfare Policy; Program Evaluation; Economics for Policy Analysis; and Advanced Methods in Policy Analysis, and directs the Center for Research on Fathers, Children and Family Well-Being.
Dr. Mincy is also a co-principal investigator of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and a faculty member of the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC).
He came to the University, in 2001, from the Ford Foundation where he served as a senior program officer and worked on such issues as improving U.S. social welfare policies for low-income fathers, especially child support, and workforce development policies; he also served on the Clinton Administration’s Welfare Reform Task Force.
This tells me, he may have had input into the Access & Visitation factor of 1996 Welfare Reform. And, he’s as much as stated he has a chip on his shoulder from childhood. However directed at low-income noncustodial fathers this work has become, by targeting the child support system, this re-balancing of “welfare” has been exploited by all levels of fathers (including some multi-millionaires) and has resulted in lots of noncustodial (and some homeless) mothers after processing through this wonderful child support system plus therapy-dispensing family law system. It has pushed social science dispensaries (whether institutes or initiatives) to the top of the administrative heap. The discussion is no longer of individual rights, due process, bias — but of outcomes, of best “practices” and “promising projects.” Such language keeps the research $$ flowing and sets up a subject/object relationship between the researchers and the poor slobs with the actual problems and lives affected the most.
Only through the internet have we become more able to “eavesdrop” in on some of these conversations, and hear the incredible logic behind them, pick on the tone of how policymakers view the nation, of how Federal entitities attempt to set up a trainee/dog relationship with the states (good states get more treats [incentives], bad states will have treats withdrawn…. Clearly in such an environment, the obvious line of work is dog trainer — if one is not of sufficient drive, connections, inspiration, pedigree, (etc.) or luck to be the ones paying the dog trainers.
NEXT QUESTIONS:
HOW MANY FOUNDATIONS DOES IT TAKE
TO ELIMINATE THE US CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS?
Whose idea was it, to switch society’s main institutions from the concept of individual rights (eventually — at least in theory — including minorities & females, in that order) in favor of “social science” (next step — back to eugenics….)?
Whose idea was it to centralize rule under Executive Dept. initiatives (versus the original idea — three branches of government).
Whose idea was it to eliminate the restrictions on sectarian religion on public government?
Well, in my book, this is in great part, a 4-letter word: “B.U.S.H.” (GWB), aka Government by Executive Order.
CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF THE
Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), was established January 29, 2001, when President George W. Bush “issued twoexecutive orders related to faith-based and community organizations. The first executive order established a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The second order established centers to implement this initiative at the Department of Justice, along with the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development. (wikipedia)
NOT a good idea for women…..
Let alone this particular President’s (and other right-wing Republicans) curious connection with the Unification Church. Don’t laugh. See my “Shady-shaky Foundations’ post and look at that picture of Sun Myung Moon being crowned in a US Senate building. And rethink all this “Family” and “Marriage” promotion agenda in terms of this known money-laundering, criminal-enterprise cult headed by the world’s “True Parents.” Or read from the Steve Hassan’s “Freedom of Mind” site on Moon/Bush: Ongoing Crime Enterprise (2007 article) :
By the early 1980s, flush with seemingly unlimited funds, Moon had moved on to promoting himself with the new Republican administration in Washington. An invited guest to the Reagan-Bush Inauguration, Moon made his organization useful to President Reagan, Vice President Bush and other leading Republicans.
Where Moon got his cash remained one of Washington’s deepest mysteries – and one that few U.S. conservatives wanted to solve. …
…
While the criminal enterprises may have been operating at one level, Moon’s political influence-buying was functioning at another, as he spread around billions of dollars helpful to the top echelons of Washington power.
Moon launched the Washington Times in 1982 and its staunch support for Reagan-Bush political interests quickly made it a favorite of Reagan, Bush and other influential Republicans. Moon also made sure that his steady flow of cash found its way into the pockets of key conservative operatives, especially when they were most in need. […]
Throughout these public appearances for Moon, Bush’s office refused to divulge how much Moon-affiliated organizations have paid the ex-President. But estimates of Bush’s fee for the Buenos Aires appearance alone ran between $100,000 and $500,000.
Sources close to the Unification Church told me that the total spending on Bush ran into the millions, with one source telling me that Bush stood to make as much as $10 million from Moon’s organization. . . .
The senior George Bush may have had a political motive, too. By 1996, sources close to Bush were saying the ex-President was working hard to enlist well-to-do conservatives and their money behind the presidential candidacy of his son, George W. Bush. Moon was one of the deepest pockets in right-wing circles.
The “Marriage Promotion” and “Fatherhood” fanaticism definitely has Unification overtones. I first began comprehending this summer 2009, while protesting another round of fatherhood funding at the Senate Appropriations Committee. This was headed up by Rep. Danny K. Davis. Naturally, I looked him up, some, and discovered the Moonie (Unification Church) connection. I told some friends, and now they think I’m nuts for the assumption… When our leaders start crowning kings in Senate Buildings, and don’t apologize for it – which Rep Davis did not — we have to start wondering where their heads are at. (Hover cursor over the “Danny K. Davis” link for the incredible/incriminating details… When our leaders start play-acting coronations and it’s somehow a joke, I think it’s time for someone else to be put on the stand and questioned.
Now that I think of this, several Judges in the SF area were found in a similar charade. Poormagazine.com alerted us to this. Photo is from 2002 AAML (Amer. Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers) gathering, apparently. It was accompanied by a spoof of the tune to “Camelot,” called “Familawt.” Compare to “coronation” photo(s)
The Round Table
Queen Dolores Carr (San Mateo)
Queen Charlotte Woolard (SF)
Queen Marjorie Slabach (SF)
King James Mize (Sacramento) King Gary Ichikawa (Solano)King David Haet (Solano)
Queen Beth Freeman (San Mateo) not pictured
I’m not against a little light-hearted fun, but given the state of the family law system (and the increasing god-like attitudes found in the Executive Branch overall, towards the rest of the country), this is more than disturbing — perhaps it represents the true regret of some elected leaders and public “servants” (such as the judges/commissioners) that there is no title of royalty available, at least per our founding documents, in this U.S.A., which got its start protesting such abuses of power from England….
There is also a unification connection to an Arizona legislator, (1998 article on “Parents Day”). Sorry I’m not an Arizona resident following their elections, but here’s a 2007 article:
(www.bizjournals.com) “Arizona state legislator and member of Unification Church weighs bid for US Congress”
The Business Journal of Phoenix — August 29, 2007
by Mike Sunnucks, The Business JournalState Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, is considering a challenge of freshman Democratic Congressman Harry Mitchell in next year’s elections.
Anderson, who is in his seventh term in the Arizona Legislature, has formed an exploratory committee for a possible run against Mitchell.
Anderson is a Realtor and a member of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. If elected, he would be the only member of Congress to be part of the Unification Church.
The Republican lawmaker cited Congress’ low approval ratings in considering a run. In the Legislature, Anderson has favored tuition and school tax credits; abstinence education programs; and removing junk food and sodas from public school vending machines.
UNIFICATION CONNECTION:
Given what this particular organization represents, worldwide (criminal enterprises, money laundering, and cult activity), the simple math should tell us: (1) The Office of Faith-based Initiative comes from Bush by Executive Order, not popular mandate (2) Bush & GOP ties close to Moon & Moon’s money. (3) Some faith-based groups are just too danged misogynist, and turn a blind eye to wife-beating and molestation. Some women became single to start with, because they found no way to stop this in their local communities. Moreover, many faith-based (husband = head of the household) groups also encourage men to control the finances, thereby when they separate, actually CAUSING, rather than SOLVING, additions to the welfare role.
The co-founders of the influential National Fatherhood Initiative include the first appointee to this Office, i.e., Don Eberly. The other co-founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative is Wade Horn. Successor (?) Ron Haskins was instrumental in passing the Access/Visitation funding mentioned above. Combined with the powerful influence of foundational wealth, their social-science, religious-based myths rhetoric is distributed nationwide, and also funded unwittingly
Then come back here.
The HERITAGE FOUNDATION (with Unification church ties….) has its FAMILY & RELIGION page, and objectives, including developing a rhetoric. Yep:
- Cultivate an environment in which the permanent institutions of family and religion can flourish and fulfill their role in maintaining ordered liberty in America.
- Develop the best research and accompanying rhetoric that will strengthen and unify the current pro-family constituency and win over new target audiences to preserve the institution of traditional marriage and restore the family to its central role.
- Unite religious and economic conservatives more effectively around the goal of restoring the family to its central role, both legally and culturally, and reviving religious liberty.
- Shape a healthy public discourse that appreciates the historic and continuing significance of religion and moral virtue in American civic life. {as signified by the pedophile priest scandal, and coverups?}
THEY SAY:
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Family and religion are foundational to American freedom and the common good.** For example, the married family plays an important part in promoting economic opportunity: children raised by never-married mothers are seven times more likely to be poor when compared to children raised in intact married families. Meanwhile, religious institutions and individuals form the backbone of America’s thriving civil society, providing for the welfare of individuals more effectively than government programs. Yet the role of these institutions in maintaining ordered liberty is poorly understood, and policy and social developments have factored in undermining their important contributions.
**Not for young women, and middle-aged women honor-murdered for being too Western, or for divorcing.
**This must be why we have the First Amendment, to enable Congress — naw, let’s just work through other arms of government — to establish a state religion called “marriage and family/fatherhood” etc….. and facilitated by some of the most misogynist groups around, including faith groups that don’t permit ordination of women, require celibacy for their priests, and believe that Eve is responsible for bringing sin into the world, primarily because she acted independently from Adam in talking to someone besides her husband.
Here’s a sample Abstract of a Heritage Foundation report on Marriage as the cure for poverty:
Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty
Published on September 16, 2010 by Robert Rector
Abstract: Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.
The rationale for pushing fatherhood through the child support system is that these engaged fathers will then contribute child support to the home, which would then help reduce poverty. Seems to me that using kids as child-support bait is not a good idea. Seems to me that anything that requires THIS MUCH POLICY PUSHING (and rhetoric-production) IS NOT COST-EFFECTIVE FOR KIDS.
Has anyone considered the custody-battle factor? When Moms go for child support, Dads go for custody and have federal help in this. Perhaps PART of the poverty factor is that both parents are being taken out of the workforce to litigate, but only one of them is getting the federal government on HIS side in the family law venue. Besides which child support contractors such as Maximus, Inc. (look ’em up!) have been caught in embezzlement, fraud (repeatedly, and in the millions) yet still get multi-million-dollar contracts after paying millions to settle. I personally think that until we either make a determination to root out fraud from this system — which would have to be consistent, local, diligent, and probably done by mothers and fathers NOT in think-tanks or on the federal (county, or state) “teat,” — we can safely assume that this is where a good deal of the nation’s wealth and GDP is going. Everyone gets a cut but the actual children….
Look at Maximus, Inc.’s range of services:
Look at one review of this group in TN, and the cases, to date, involving embezzlement & fraud:
Thursday, May 28. 2009
Maximus signs $49M Tennessee child support deal
Your private information may have just gotten more vulnerable in state of Tennessee. In a deal that is qualified as the largest state privatization deal up to this point has been awarded to “Government Health Services Provider Maximus, Inc.” to provide services that the state is paid to provide to its residents under a federally mandated social security program known as Title IV-D. (42 USC 651). The contract details, we are working on, but Maximus, Inc. will be doing the government’s job in locating absent parents, establishing paternity, carrying out support orders and medical support orders, processing interstate cases, and providing customer service. This comes as a surprise because just last month there was a Former Child Support Services Employee Arrested in Tennessee for selling confidential records.
I am in the process of obtaining the government’s documents associated with these contracts, stay tuned for more information. We have some legitimate fears of access to citizen’s private data that have not been found guilty of any crimes being placed in unregulated databases that are accessible by unsavory characters that aim to make a profit with identity theft.
Over the past several years we have noticed a climate ripe for embezzlement, identity theft, invasion of privacy, and more. Just this year the Federal government removed some protections to the taxpayer to stop the continuous growth of these agencies. The reversal of the tax payer protection policy that was originally implemented under the Budget Deficity Reduction Act of 2005, paves the way for more disastrous consquences for taxpayers.Just in June 2008, Delaware Child Support Program Employees were caught stealing from taxpayers and the children. Just over a year ago, we demonstrated how Theft was Running Rampid in State Child Support Programs. The widespread lack of accountability in these programs continues, without sufficiently limiting access to private data and ensuring digital fingerprints are placed on all data in the various systems nationwide, there will continue to be fraud on the taxpayers and the participants of Child Support Enforcement programs.
The Child Support Enforcement program continues to be plagued over the past several years of documented fraud, identity theft, embezzlement, bribery schemes, and more.
Here’s a report from Canada complaining that this giant company has already run into problems in 5 US states:
B.C. Contractor Maximus Mishandled Public Funds in U.S.
Liberals, as part of privatizing push, gave a $324 million contract to a firm with a history of controversy in five states. A TYEE SPECIAL REPORT
By Scott Deveau, 3 Dec 2004, TheTyee.ca
In its move to privatize PharmaCare and the Medical Service Plan, the provincial (CANADIAN) government hired a company that was found by the state of Wisconsin to have misappropriated public funds.
The same company, Virginia-based Maximus Ltd., has been embroiled in controversies in four other states, involving accusations of mismanagement, overspending or improperly receiving information while seeking a contract. … …
U.S.-based giant
The company, which is one of the largest providers of outsourced business and information technology to governments, has 280 offices in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and more than 5,000 employees worldwide. It provides a range of services from welfare, educational and judicial programs, to debt collection agencies on student loans and child support.
Bill Berkowitz tracks a lot of conservative funding, and wrote a famous article nailing Bush’s payoffs to certain individuals pushing marriage promotion (Wade Horn, Maggie Gallagher, etc.). This 2001 report Prospecting Among the Poor: Welfare Privatization (co. May, 2001, Applied Research Center) summarizes the situation and deals with the Maximus, Inc. group, first, including its troubling practices in Wisconsin:
Discriminatory Practices
The Milwaukee Business Journal reports that, on top of the company’s financial shenanigans, “16 formal gender or racial discrimination complaints have been filed with the Milwaukee office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, against Maximus or one of its subsidiaries. In addition…as many as a dozen internal grievances were filed with the company’s human resources office related to unfair promotion practices.”34
Linda Garcia is an organizer with 9to5, a national nonprofit grassroots organization working to empower women through securing economic justice. Garcia has observed the activities of Maximus first-hand from the front lines in Milwaukee. “The public has not been served well by privatization, “ she says. “The standards of accountability and monitoring have been practically non-existent. We’re not seeing decent services provided to the community or a decrease in poverty or homelessness.” Garcia, who has been working on behalf of the women involved in the discrimination suit against Maximus, believes discriminatory practices “may be widespread” at Maximus’ MaxStaff entity, which seems to be “funneling women to low-paying jobs in order to quickly receive the bonus staff gets for placements.”35
2001 Prospecting Among the Poor- Welfare Privatization~ Berkowitz
The bonus principle cited here exists in virtually any custody battle; in court cases easily become the “kickback” principle, opportunities to overcharge or double-bill, and opportunities to “buy” a decision, especially as the family law system is known for wide discretion given to judges.
In the Access and Visitation grants (and the expanding other grant systems they attract or work alongside, through the child support agency, as in Texas), the presence of (poorly-monitored) federal incentives, multiple nonprofit sub-grantees, and program facilitators with connections to the courts, makes an atmosphere ripe for case-steering when the stakes are, children and child support.
So I recommend scanning this report and considering its implications. I’m glad that people like Mr. Berkowitz have reported on events that took place while I, and other families, were struggling with their individual cases, and also to survive in their own households. Excerpts:
INTRODUCTION
Even before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 was signed, sealed, and delivered to the states, the conservative Reason Foundation’s William Eggers and John O’Leary had lauded “aggressive” privatization initiatives in New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Georgia.
New York Governor George Pataki, chair of the Privatization Task Force of the Republican Governors Association, had argued at a meeting of governors that it was time for the immediate repeal of federal barriers to privatization at the state and local levels:
…
The privatization of welfare was a triumph for many Republican as well as some Democratic governors, and for conservative national and state legislators.
Policy analysts at right-wing think tanks and policy institutes were also elated. In a 1997 speech, Lawrence W. Reed, President of the conservative Midland, Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, touted privatization as the wave of the future:
….
Bernard Picchi, growth stocks analyst for Lehman Brothers, estimated that the potential market (for welfare privatization) could easily be more than $20 billion a year. Others placed the target figure as high as $28 billion, more than 10% of the national expenditure on welfare recipients.15
…CHARITABLE CHOICE:
In addition to unleashing predatory corporate forces, the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 contains the first enactment of a concept conservatives call “charitable choice.” Far from expanding anyone’s choices, “charitable choice” forces state and local governments to include religious organizations in their pool of bidders for service-delivery contracts.
Cathlin Siobhan Baker, Co-Director of The Employment Project, explains although religious organizations have received government funding over the years for emergency food programs, childcare, youth programs, and the like, they were expressly prohibited from religious proselytizing. Baker writes: “Gone are the prohibitions regarding government funding of pervasively sectarian organizations. Churches and other religious congregations that provide welfare services on behalf of the government can display religious symbols, use religious language, and use religious criteria in hiring and firing employees.”50
…
On January 29, [2001] amidst great fanfare and surrounded by Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, President George W. Bush signed an executive order cre- ating a new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As governor of Texas, Bush has been a strong advocate for charitable choice, supporting the notion that faith-based organizations take over a large part of the provision of a broad array of government services. One of the things the new White House Office will do is help religious groups compete for billions of dollars in government grants.
During the presidential campaign, Bush called for “armies of compassion” fielded by “faith-based organizations, charities and community groups” to help aid America’s poor and needy. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Bush laid out his plan for taking “the next bold step in welfare reform,” proposing $80 billion over 10 years so that faith-based organizations can become “our nation’s most heroic armies of compassion.” He also proposed a $200 million federal initiative to “sup-port community and faith-based groups that fortify marriage and champion the role of fathers.”51 The ceremony at the White House was only Bush’s first step toward fulfilling his campaign promises.
Right-wing ideologues find charitable choice attractive because it not only reduces government involvement in service-delivery but also injects their religious and “moral framework” into the welfare debate. Welfare is no longer a question of poverty or the economic inequities in our society; the debate is framed within such time-honored right-wing moral premises as an epidemic of out-of-wedlock births and the lack of personal responsibility – behaviors that conservatives believe contribute to the general moral breakdown of our society.
Not only has the web changed the workplace, it has most certainly also changed government. However the policies forced on the poorer population are geared to the industrial economy, a 9 to 5 mentality, a public education mentality, a faith-based mentality.
The welfare concept eliminates and discourages single parents from supporting themselves in creative ways (including through this internet). Its assumption that poverty has to do mostly with fatherlessness is nonsensical, and dishonest — when many times it may relate instead to a present, and abusive, father. Failing to distinguish one case from another, and listening primarily to their own rhetoric, social scientists in key positions + political appointees force basic “solutions” on the entire society, and stick society with the bill as well. It is basically taxation without representation.
The only people escaping this taxation without representation are those profiting from it — who run or own nonprofit businesses, have or benefit from private foundations or wealth — or in some other way have learned to maximize profits, reduce expenses, and make their expenses, including conferences on how to keep the systems going, tax deductions.
These people are not uniformly two-parent income, or even stable-marriage families. Heck, some (including Presidents & legislators) are not even faithful to their own wives. So how dare they preach to the rest of us, who are not quite so wealthy, or don’t have backing to get into political office, on our morals and work ethic?
In the “Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support Programs” (links above), on page “271” there is an Appropriations History Table, from 2002 through 2009. Its simple, (two-column) and speaks volumes. The costs range from $2+ billion to $4+ billion, and always with an advance of $1billion or so. ALWAYS the appropriation is higher than budget.
The Philanthropist Roundtable (Reviving Marriage in America, link above) lists these benefits to Marriage. Are you in agreement with all of them? If not, do you want your IRS payments to go towards pushing marriage education, (let alone abstinence education for parents), do you want families EXTORTED into high-stakes custody litigation through the child support system, do you really believe that we should have such foundations running our lives through major institutions?
If not, take some time to read the links I’ve provided here, which prompted this piecemeal protest post. Really these are TAX issues. Perhaps more of us should focus on establishing foundations and stop working W-2 jobs;; there has to be a better way. Anyhow, rich conservative foundations declare:
The Benefits of Marriage
Benefits for Adults
1. Married men and women have lower mortality rates and tend to have better overall health than their single counterparts.
2. Married couples tend to have more material resources, less stress and better social support than people who are not married.
3. Married men are less likely to abuse alcohol.***
[[potential cause of divorce — wife gets tired of living with a chronic alcoholic. Hence, those who stay married might indeed drink less…]]
4. Both married men and women report significantly lower levels of depression and have better overall psychological well-being than
their single, divorced, widowed and cohabitating counterparts.**
[[Exceptions: marriages with abuse, or chronic infidelity. Which definitely is depressing and affects psychological well-being!]]
5. Married African-Americans have better life satisfaction than those who are single.
[[! ! ! How are these people checking out African-American’s “life satisfaction” quotient? Apparently, it’s important not to have too many angry, dissatisfied African-Americans around. After all, the prisons are already overcrowded, and with US already the largest per-capita jailor on earth, what’s a ruling elite to do if the anger spills over?]]
6. Married men report higher wages than single men and have been found to be more productive and more likely to be promoted.
[[So women should marry and stay married to encourage men to work. Single working parents, single nonparents should also contribute to the federal marriage movement, because without marriage, men are simply not as motivated to work. Potential cause — the wife at home is supporting the guy, or the wife at WORK is supporting the guy. What about married mother’s wages or likelihood of promotion? Knowing the high potential for divorce, women should (sure, yeah….) most definitely go for marriage, because it’s good overall for the nation, even if they sacrifice their financial futures post-marriage, ending up eventually on welfare, in court, and fighting for custody of their children with a federally-funded fatherhood mandate run through the child support system?]]
7. Married women tend to have substantially more economic resources than single women. The economic benefits of marriage are especially strong for women who come from disadvantaged families.
[[I really wonder where this statistic comes from… There are obviously exceptions, some of them in abusive religious marriages, some where, at times, a woman was sought from another country to make some babies for a US resident.]]
Benefits for Children
1. Children from families with married parents are less likely to experience poverty than children from single-parent or cohabitating families.
2. Children born to cohabitating couples have a higher chance of experiencing family instability, a factor that has been linked to poor child well-being.
3. Children from married, two-parent families tend to do better in school than those who grow up in single-parent or alternative family structures.
4. Children from intact, two-parent families are less likely to experience emotional-behavioral problems.
5. The more time children live in a married, two-parent home, the less likely they are to use drugs.
6. Children who grow up in a married, two-parent family are less likely to have children out of wedlock in their future relationships.
7. Women with married parents are less likely to experience a high-conflict marriage.
8. Single mothers report more conflict with their children than married mothers.
[**depending on date of this report, one factor may be this agenda being run through the family law system to start with — as it has been since 1996 at least, which guarantees ongoing court litigation where one parent wants to struggle, and the case was flagged for program funding to help ONE side do this.]
9. The rate of infant mortality is lower among married parents.
10. Children living with their married, biological parents are less likely to experience child abuse.**
[[see note on married men drink less. Child abuse by either parent is a deal-breaker for most marriages. And, what about also the ongoing situations where the child experiences abuse on visitations with the noncustodial parent — such cases would fall under “not living with their married biological parents” — but who is the perpetrator? If someone is willing to abuse a child initially, whether married or single, would life be better if such parents were together, and the abuser had daily access?? This statements imply doesn’t handle many situations.]]
- What this entire report fails to address is that domestic violence can turn lethal within marriage, or leaving a marriage.
- Moreover, an on-line “find” (search) in this report of the word “father” (which covers fathers, fatherhood, fathering etc.) shows 23 occurrences. The corresponding search on “mother,” only 7. That’s imbalanced, and typical of certain sites sponsored by conservative foundations.
A token reference to the fact that for some, marriage has problems occurs here, in context of the tail end of an inset about marriage education movement. Notice, no mention is made that some marriages result in death by femicide. This is virtual denial…..
“Feminist leaders at the time emphasized the dark side of marriage for women whose husbands refused to be equal partners to their working wives and women trapped in abusive relationships. {{note order: not equal partners, and just a token, vague reference to “abusive” which is then dropped. Completely:…}}
The mainline Christian churches emphasized pastoral sensitivity to divorced people and single parents, which seemed inconsistent with proclaiming the unique value of life- long marriage. {{meaning, to be consistent, churches who believe in lifelong marriage should be harsh to divorced people and single parents? which harshness of course would be inconsistent with the gospel record of their hero, Jesus’, sensitivity, including to a woman caught in adultery, a poor widow, a woman with an issue of blood, and so forth…}}
The conservative Christian churches still preached about life- long marriage but were not organizing programs for couples to help them achieve such relationships.”
OK, so the Bradley Foundation acknowledges there are churches with thoughts about divorce. But ….
Do we or do we not have other religions in this country? (But none mentioned here?). How about Islam — what about Shari’a? Does marriage promotion apply here also? Because the Muslim and the Christian/Jewish (let alone agnostic/atheist) concepts of marriage are radically different from each other. Should the US move towards the Shari’a model because marriage is “good” for a nation? How could any discussion of this topic among conservative foundations just “forget” other major world religions, let alone that First Amendment is intended to protect religious choice — not push one variety of it on all of us through governmental institutions.!
Nonie Darwish at Temple University (April 2011) — these are Youtubes of a presentation, and a following Q&A. I haven’t viewed them (fresh off a Google search to you), but have read at least one of her books:
Nonie Darwish: Shari’a Law & America at Temple University
This is another reason why the US should NOT allow religious groups to be grabbing federal funds to collect child support and promote fatherhood. What if the group favors shari’a law, which goes like this:
Shari’a, that is Muslim law, controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.
In the Western World (including America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shari’a Law under which wives can not obtain a divorce and men have full and complete control of their children. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities and other parts of the Western world are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shari’a law.
By publicizing the information below, I hope to help enlightened American and other women avoid becoming slaves under Shari’a Law:
1. In the Muslim faith, a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old, consummating the marriage by 9.
2. A dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman who becomes a slave.
3. Even though a woman is abused she cannot obtain a divorce.
4. To prove rape, a woman must have four male witnesses.
5. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family.
6. Husbands can beat their wives ‘at will’ and do not have to say why the beating occurred.
7. A husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for a limited period at his discretion.The goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shari’a law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual. Islamic law (Shari’a) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.
Peace and prosperity for one’s children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.
While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics – one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others..
While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with G-d, Shari’a advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.
This woman should know — and has earned the right to speak on it. The blurb:
“Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza. When he died, he was considered a “shahid,” a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society. But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing and later abandoned Islam.” (For Christianity, incidentally).
What about a woman who has escaped a violent marriage, and may wish to partake, for once, in a better one — but because of the family law system, is doomed to struggling with custody until all kids turn 18? Should she suffer, should the next potential partner suffer alongside, because some people believe that the problem with this country is out-of-wedlock fertility, unhappy AFrican American couples (read the list!) and of course the cause of child abuse and poverty is fatherlessness – not failure to prosecute child abusers properly, or economic policies that exploit wage-earners and outsource child support collections to corporations like Maximus, Inc., famous for fraud, gender discrimination, embezzlement, and poor performance?
We do not need cults (Unification Church), Crooks, or Misogynist Faith Institutions running the child support system as if there was a war on fatherhood by virtue of women having gained some options in the mid to late 1900s, including to vote, and an uphill fight that was.
We do not need another caste system — or royalty — created through welfare policies based on myths, which then undermine the primary documents on which our country has been founded by trying to tip the court favor towards fathers based on a job-based workforce system and inferior educational system.
As Berkowitz wrote in 2001 (above), Welfare Privatization is a cash cow, a big one, and Charitable Choice may fall hard on women overall, given how many religious groups already do. Those in the (expanding) bureaucracy get to inhabit lofty positions writing about the poor while those poor often live lives at risk from their partners, their neighborhoods, and the myth that the legal system exists for them — and not for those running it.
OCSE – TANF – FATHERHOOD PROMOTION, MARRIAGE PROMOTION — PRIVATE CONTRACTORS CAUGHT IN EMBEZZLEMENT AND FRAUD — GOP PRESIDENTIAL CONNECTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL MONEY-LAUNDERING, CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE (the Unification Church) & CULT — and PRIVATE WEALTH (whether honestly or dishonestly gotten) RUNNING AND RESTRUCTURING GOVERNMENT, HIGHER EDUCATION, LOWER (EARLY CHILDHOOD) EDUCATION, AND SO ON.
Let’s begin with this Eliminating this Child Support System — which garnishes wages and has the power to put a man or a woman in jail, or homeless, if they don’t pay up, farms out collections to companies known for gender, race discrimination, fraud, embezzlement, and poor performances (Maximus), selling private information and in general tearing up the lives of innocent people (but still getting multi-illion$ contracts). While its federal fatherhood focus is indeed sexist, it is also equipped to turn on EITHER gender, depending on the case, and get away with it. Which, while the original concept was — child support — the “evolution” of it is becoming more and more like an episode of “Aliens” only more frightening.
Which is just too big and too entrenched.
Sounds like a good idea, on the surface: I briefly took welfare (food stamps) and the county went for the father to pay themselves back. They could be the “bad guy” in the situation, protecting me. But in practice, I see, they’ve had a makeover, and are more interested in being the nice guy (and enrolling men in fatherhood programs, access visitation programs, etc.).
I thought it was a great transitional idea immediately after marriage to have someone besides myself (for a change) asking the father of my children to pull his own weight, like I was, and to do so without in-home assault & battery privileges. We got a child support order when I got welfare help (rather than ask him for help myself). Not having the operational structure laid out in front of me, I thought that my getting OFF the system would be the end of the story, and they could go their way, and I mine, end of acquaintance. What did I know about the federal incentives, or how the interest income — of pooled, undistributed collections — was a real low-hanging fruit for the operation, and by withdrawing
Not so, not with all these grant programs and federal incentives flying around the place; not when within my own state, the same jurisdiction that basically spawned the family law industry was caught with its pants down, sitting on millions of collected child support (and its interest) until one father and one attorney caught them at this (John Silva, Richard Fine).
SO, LET’s ELIMINATE — OR AT LEAST BOYCOTT — THE ENTIRE AGENCY. HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS NOT NEED CHILD SUPPORT. KNOW WHAT IT MEANS IN ADVANCE. WARN MOTHERS LEAVING VIOLENT RELATIONSHIPS. AND TELL YOUR LOCAL LEGISLATOR (FIND OUT IN ADVANCE IF HE OR SHE IS ON A “NATIONAL FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE” LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE — MANY ARE…) THAT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! If a program takes over $4 BILLION just to enforce, and is still resulting in increased welfare loads, is not well-tracked, and has already been caught in repeated scandals — then it’s simply not worth the investment.
Mothers of minor children can only do so much, but one thing we can do is boycott (boycott seeking child support if you can. Or marriage — or sex (believe me, it’s been discussed in some groups I know) — or the family law system. You might get dragged in, but don’t go voluntarily — and publicize — put the warning labels out on blogs — they won’t reach mainstream media — and encourage them to find another way to live; there has to be one.
Decent Single Mothers AND Decent single Fathers AND decent non-parents (single or married) should figure out what we have in common, start asking hard questions about this OCSE agency and how it spends its funds. Meanwhile, we should work TOGETHER (unilaterally) to boycott it until it gets the message we are serious.
Most will not, or cannot, because their lives are already so entwined in and dependent upon this system, whether for work, for their kids’ school, or they are simply already employed by the huge bureaucracy. Or, their free time weekends is soaked up volunteering at the local faith-based organization…
FOUNDATIONS AND WELFARE POLICY:
Foundation after Foundation are writing the policy, through government institutions…. When one considers what foundations are, to start with, tax-exempt, one wonders about the arrangement. The Lynde and Larry Bradley Foundation (who published the “Marriage Guidebook — strategy for donors” I linked to, above) also is sponsoring another welfare think-tank in Wisconsin, with the “same old” players included that re-wrote welfare to include more Dads. Hmm. Wasn’t Wisconsin having LOTS of fiscal/political problems recently?
During the conference, an eclectic group of national thinkers will address the intersection between welfare policy and issues such as: parental involvement, especially fatherhood; {{now WHY doesn’t that surprise me?}} child well-being; marriage and divorce; family living arrangements; and non-marital sex, pregnancy, and child birth. Attendees will gain a better understanding of what the state of Wisconsin — and the nation as a whole — can (and can’t) do to build a welfare policy that has strong, stable families at its center.The discussions will be moderated by former White House and Congressional welfare-policy advisor Ron Haskins of theBrookings Institution in Washington, D.C. The luncheon speaker will beWade F. Horn, a former Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee substantially supports WPRI.
- RON HASKINS — INSTRUMENTAL IN TACKING THE “ACCESS AND VISITATION” LANGUAGE ONTO WELFARE REFORM AT THE 9TH HOUR…
- WADE HORN — CONFLICTS OF INTEREST (PRIVATE NONPROFIT WITH HHS)
- “David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan organization devoted to strengthening families and civil society in the U.S. and around the world. Blankenhorn is the author of several books, is a frequent lecturer, and has been featured on numerous national television programs.”
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All the World’s a Stage. Or, is it Classroom? Or, is it Human Laboratory?
Well, it depends on the point of view. In yesterday’s obnoxiously long post, I ran across the phrase “Recalcitrant parents” being used in Kids’ Turn propaganda. The word “recalcitrant” is generally applied to the word “child” —
A Sampler of Timeless “Wisdom” across the centuries:
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“All the World’s A Stage” … the bottom line is…
1600s, roughly:
William Shakespeare – All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Whatever you may think of that phrase, it’s full of metaphors, and takes a few minutes to chew on them, translate into perhaps common terms (what is he referring to, in other words?) and you come out with a perspective on life pretty close to “from dust to dust.” Shakespeare’s seven stages of man go from infant to infant: A child “mewling and puking in its nurses’ arms…” and towards the very end, like the last scene, “sans (without) teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” There is a real truth to this, and perspective — Life has stages, beginning, and end. Noting this, with elegance, puts man — meaning ALL of us — humbly in place; all have exits and entrances, and all go to the same final stage — helpless, like a child…
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.
At least it makes you think!
The World is a stage, and a sense of perspective says there are different acts, AND bottom line, the play is over, it has an exit, no matter how poorly or well we played our parts. He pokes fun at the sixth stage, a Justice — “full of wise saws (sayings)…”. He’s going to slip into high-pitched voice, no teeth, and that impressive presence is going to turn back into a helpless infancy on the way out…
Shakespeare’s speech finds something to mock in every stage — appropriately, because,
the bottom line is… there will be an exit.
Hundreds of Years BC (or, to be Politically Correct, “BCE”):
Solomon (book of Ecclesiastes, “the Preacher”)
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Vanity of Vanity, all is Vanities — the bottom line is …
From Ecclesiastes 12 (last chapter)–
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,4And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;
Basically, he’s describing that seventh stage of life, in a very picturesque way, rich in symbolism.
5Alsowhen they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. 7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
And he gently mocks the endless writings….
. . .of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
To be condensed into:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Again, the bottom line is Fear God, because what you do, including what you tried to do in secret, is going to be judged (in the resurrection, is implied):
Remember thy Creator while young, and Fear God, keep his commandments. THere’s even a rationale provided: “for God shall bring every work into judgment, every secret, whether good, or whether evil.”
Even those who may not believe in that future judgment, or in terms such as “good” or “evil” (perhaps this is a sad loss in our society, to openly say we believe there is good and there is evil — as opposed to functional & dysfunctional, healthy and unhealthy (as defined by ……?) might be able to grasp some interest in the symbolism, the recommendation towards humility in life. Some of the phrasing, about Times and Seasons has made it into music, old and new… it’s simple enough to grasp the concept….
“Simple Pictures are Best!”
The basic commandments cited were about ten only (one for each finger, in intact humans), not too many to count…and they too had a condensed internal order to them that refer to ethical behavior and not putting onesself first as “God” in worship, or in relationships. Most of these have some direct parallel in law today — i.e., thou shalt not bear false witness ( slander, libel, perjury), though shalt not steal (self-explanatory!), thou shalt not commit murder (homicide), and a few most have tossed since — honor the sabbath, honor mother and father, don’t commit adultery (definitely tossed by the wayside), and stop coveting all your neighbor’s stuff.
How about just TWO concepts?
Anyhow, moving on… Jesus, in the gospels, further simplified those 10 down into just 2: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Hard to remember? No. Hard to do? Yes. But one need not Ph.D- it (pile it higher deeper) (Ph.D.) to practice, or sit at the feet of one to practice these, either. It relates to choice, determination, and will — not education only..
Even atheist George Carlin (search my site — believe I linked to this YouTube) was able to boil those 10 down to 2 also, and with some humor. Most normal people could figure these out. It takes a special mindset NOT to….
Fast forward to somewhere between 30 and 70 A.D. excuse me, politically more correct, “CE”). This — still in Shakespearean English (but in any language — Greek, Hebrew — the elegance of language still holds)
Or, OK, THREE main concepts…
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Things go better with “Love” (Charity) — without them, it’s just all show and noise”
The apostle Paul, to some Gentiles with significant “relationship” problems, including even incest, strife, and divided loyalties, ignorance, and (this addresses), the omnipresent hyperinflated EGO…
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There is a difference between doling out tons of charity, and living with this love and concern for others’ well-being. They are not the same things, and sometimes people sitting atop and running charitable foundations can be real pompous and arrogant. I can think of few things more arrogant than the attempt to train the entire U.S. population (at its own expense) in concepts like “fatherhood” or “abstinence” and so forth…. let alone “healthy relationships.” Sorry, but that’s ARROGANT! Congresspeople that voted for this are not likely monogamous, uniformly faithful to their own wives (and/or husbands — though its the male indiscretions we hear most about), or even all straight. The intent is to legislate this for the common folk — not the upper echelon or the policymakers. |
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Bear with the Bible stuff, please…
I wouldn’t be exposing readers to all this scripture without a point, be patient please. To recall: all the world’s a stage, in the bottom line, all is vanity — you’re going to die, one way or another/strength will fade; constant writing of books is weariness of the flesh, and MOST wisdom can be condensed down in to a very few basics — whether 2 items (Fear God & Keep his Commandments), 2 OTHER items (Love God with all you got AND your neighbor as yourself), or here, we are going to have THREE items, and ranked as to which one ranks the highest:
12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of theseis charity.
This world view values humility, and realizes that changes happen — that we are NOT know-it-alls or perfect. So, until then, recognize this, and focus on the three most important qualities:
- Faith
- Hope
- Charity
The first two relate specifically to the religion — faith in Jesus Christ, hope in the return, and future judgment of good & evil, and that we are on the right side of that judgment, and recognition that, like it or not, a lot of secret things will exist till then. ALl will come out in the wash. Faith and Hope relate SPECIFICALLY to where the individual will stand at that future judgment, and expects it to come.
I don’t take this (case in point, see blog!) to mean passivity in the face of evil, or lack of social justice efforts. But anyone who undertakes serious reporting of corruption, crime, or attempts to clean up institutions, or to live so clean one-self regarding all standards– will soon learn it’s a rough road (if a good one) and a risky one, and vast in nature. Without some kind of personalized hope, personalized faith in what one is doing, the sustained effort simply wouldn’t be worth the pain and drain!
People who have this faith and hope (whether in this religion, or other causes they actually are personally committed to) are hard to manipulate, sway, and intimidate — and threaten people to whom those practices are normal.
Among such groups are parents attempting to protect their children from abuse, and I have to say judging by the courts, that SOMETHING about the mother-child relationship must be quite threatening to the status quo — because it has been disrupted, intentionally and systematically, by judges, and “in the best interests of the child.” The real bottom line in the courts is, parents cannot decide for themselves, and must not be allowed to. they are infants, they are incompetent, they are “recalcitrant” some literature from Kids Turn said (last post….). They need to be taught…. ALL of them…..
We just passed the month of Valentine’s Day. That’s about romance. This is a deeper kind of action:
The Greatest of these is Charity.
It will abide beyond the Faith and Hope…
It is the deepest motivator.
the bottom line is… charity. And a healthy dose of humility — because now, we know in PART…
Now, I’d like to contrast the above sections with where we are now, in the permanently in need of education, training and I suppose, diapering?, population of the United States of America primarily from the Executive Branch, and again, at its own expense…
No more stages of humanity — for those teaching or for those taught. Of childhood and development, yeah sure – but once in the courts, immaturity for ever seems to be assured. THis is basic public policy (those doing the teaching and “training” excepted, of course). We have really sunk so low to a permanent, unchangeable state of needing to be taught and trained…. And this is reflected in the degraded, pompous, self-important language of the trainers, which bears no relationship to the timeless wisdom of the ages — Love God (i.e., YOu are not God..) Love your neighbor, work no ill to your neighbor, and keep things in perspective…life has stages, and consider how you spend them, because assuredly there is an exit.
Nope, no more of that. Instead we have “constructs” and “Initiatives” and “Explications”. We have ever-expanding “mental health” needs (probably because the society is so insane!….).
How about “Parenting Coordination”?
I’ll just pick a random AFCC conference agenda, or a random term, for a sampler:
- All North America — well, at least (here) USA — and heck, let’s throw in Canada — needs PARENTING COORDINATION:
-
Parenting Coordination. The bottom line is. . we need parenting coordinators.
But someone has to Coordinate the “parenting” coordinators — so why not put together a task force to define practices in this new field defined (and created) by the court system itself…
This is from May, 2005
Guidelines for Parenting Coordination
Developed by The AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination May 2005
Scratch the surface (or look at the foundations — see my blog!) of almost any family court, or “domestic relations” court, or “Unified Family Court” system — and this AFCC organization will be there, and probably helping run it as well.
Just enjoy the elegance, catch the flavor, catch the drift…..
The Guidelines for Parenting Coordination (“Guidelines”) are the product of the interdisciplinary AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (“Task Force”). First appointed in 2001 by Denise McColley, AFCC President 2001-02, the Task Force originally discussed creating model standards of practice. At that time, however, the Task Force agreed that the role was too new for a comprehensive set of standards.
The Task Force instead investigated the issues inherent in the new role and described the manner in which jurisdictions in the United States that have used parenting coordination resolved those issues. The report of the Task Force’s (2001-2003) two- year study was published in April of 2003 as “Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues.”1
The Task Force was reconstituted in 2003 by Hon. George Czutrin, AFCC President 2003-04. President Czutrin charged the Task Force with developing model standards of practice for parenting coordination for North America and named two Canadian members to the twelve-member task force. The Task Force continued investigating the use of the role in the United States and in Canada and drafted Model Standards for Parenting Coordination after much study, discussion and review of best practices in both the United States and Canada.
AFCC posted the Model Standards on its website, afccnet.org, and the TaskForce members also widely distributed them for comments. The Task Force received many thoughtful and articulate comments which were carefully considered in making substantive and editorial changes based upon the feedback that was received.
I was in the court system at this time. No one asked MY opinion…. Of course we weren’t the type of family that could afford the custody evaluation/parenting coordinator route. There are two tracks in the courts (surely you know this by now) — families with money to be drained out — they go for the custody evaluation route — and families WITHOUT money to be drained out — they go the mediator route, with the end goal of getting the minor children away fro BOTH parents and into the foster care system somehow. Alternately, someone in government could end up personally adopting children, or adolescents, if such is desired. (see my Wacko in Wisconsin series — an account is detailed, and the on-line docket supported the pattern the forlorn, probably bankrupt by now mother, described). Sometimes foster care kids get trafficked (Franklin County, NE coverup being a horrible example). Sometimes they run away and get picked up by other abusers, as has happened in the Northern California area at least once. So the No-MOney-to-extort segment of society, they are encouraged to fight in court, and then, any number of alternatives may result — but I do know in my case, when I said I was NOT going to call in CPS on a simple (but blatantly illegal) violation of a physical custody order, the local law enforcement stood by with their arms folded. I wasn’t going to, as a mother, produce some income for the county up front by abandoning my children, so “forget you!”
Track one — extort money from the parents by promoting litigation on frivolous issues, call in some parenting coordinators, custody evaluators, court-appointed attorneys, or in short almost anything court-associated. The medical equivalent would be something similar to dialysis — blood is drained out, recirculated at huge expense, and put back into the parent’s and children’s blood stream, a total sea change of relationships…
Track two — is “Give us your kids, or forget you”
Back to the sample of “literature” in the endless education field of the courts:
Even the name of this document was changed to “Guidelines for Parenting Coordination” to indicate the newness of the field of parenting coordination and the difficulty of coming to consensus in the United States and Canada on “standards” at this stage in the use of parenting coordination. The AFCC Board of Directors approved the Guidelines on May 21, 2005.
The members of the AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (2003 – 2005) were: Christine A. Coates, M.Ed., J.D., Chairperson and Reporter; Linda Fieldstone, M.Ed., Secretary; Barbara Ann Bartlett, J.D., Robin M. Deutsch, Ph.D., Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, J.D, Philip M. Epstein, Q.C. LSM, Barbara Fidler, Ph.D., C.Psych, Acc.FM. Jonathan Gould, Ph.D., Hon. William G. Jones, Joan Kelly, Ph.D., Matthew J. Sullivan, Ph.D., Robert N. Wistner, J.D.
1 See AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues, 41 Fam. Ct. Re. 533 (2003).
Joan Kelly, Ph.D. (not ‘J.D.”) appears to be one of the grand dames of the system – her name, and her work is “everywhere.” Then again, AFCC has great PR.
At the bottom of this post (under the line of ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ‘s) I’ll post a classic 2003 condensed summary of the interrelationships, still a good writing on this (Cindy Ross). The same intelligence is also found at NAFCJ.net (Liz Richards’) blog, which has been exploring these matters since 1993…
The key to the system is the “business and professions” model analysis. Where professional organizations, and certain professionals who conference, task force, promote certain legislation, etc., fit into this picture is that these ASSOCIATIONS (affiliated with certain professions – judges, mediators, psychiatrists, mental health services providers, and of course, now, parenting coordinators….) are going to, each and every time, try to drum up more business. Why not — the groups boast memberships with judges on them ,and have learned how to become “principal investigators’ or “program directors” in various funding streams, and then channel those streams one way or another — and parents who lack the skill to investigate and challenge this — are babes in the wood when it comes to the family court process. THey get lost there, too.
-
the bottom line apparently is, “NO exit from this system, at least in this life…”
The system expands — endlessly — and gets more and more pompous and arrogant in the positions, the languages, and the number task forces needed to change a light bulb. Experts fly to and fro across the country to collaborate with each other on the next (scam) (possible profession to establish from the messes created by the courts to start with!). …. Most parents are not alerted to the hyper-active flight schedule of their overlords…. or where they congregate.
What pithy language, what clear terms, what graphic real-life symbolism comes from this trade:
Overview and Definitions
Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
And a little grammar fluke “assist parents . . . .. to implement their parenting plan” The correct usage is “assist parents . . IN implementing their parenting plan…
To review the wonderful terms, nouns, verbs, adjectives.
PARENTING COORDINATION IS a . . . . . . PROCESS.
….Wow, I’m gripped already…. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the plot.
What kind of process?
. . . . it is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process….
Wrong on both counts.
(1) It’s not focused on the children, it’s focused on the professionals, and drumming up more business for them. Decently written “parenting coordination plans” (what are we, cattle?? In need of personal assistants to write in dates and times of drop off, pick up?) would need extra help to implement.
(2) From what we are reading about the courts, the disputes don’t get resolved — but rather heightened and escalated until someone breaks, or someone else shuts down emotionally socially, etc.
…in which a mental health or legal professional ….
i.e., what AFCC is primarily composed of, and of course not any ordinary person. People outside the fields promoted and endorsed by this group NEED NOT APPLY. (i.e., an elite squad of only the truly informed…)
…with mediation training and experience…
Of course. The “mediation” promotion (also endless in this field) is CENTRAL to family courts and has already been identified as how to increase noncustodial parenting time. They have rules, but don’t follow them. Fact-finding on the parents is DISCOURAGED in some circumstance. Recently, an ETHICAL mediator was fired (for doing the right thing — actually reading where criminal records existed — unheard of almost, in this field) and won a case that her firing was discriminatory retaliation for, basically ,whistle-blowing.
This quote is from TODAY’s post, article by Peter Jamison, cover story on the SF Weekly.
{FYI: I have submitted 2 comments (under this name) on the site Rightsformothers.com which, if approved, may shed some more light on the article and what it does, and does not, cover.}}
Emily Gallup, a Stanford-educated mediator in the Nevada County Family Court, was fired after her supervisors criticized her for reviewing parents’ criminal histories when making her custody recommendations. In a March 2010 written reprimand of Gallup prepared by Court Executive Officer Sean Metroka, and obtained by SF Weekly, Metroka states that it was “unprofessional and unacceptable” for her to have requested a criminal history report in a recent case she was handling. “I admonished you not to take the role of a court investigator,” he wrote.
Research on parents is part of a mediator’s job, as it is for evaluators, minors’ counsels, and judges — no single court official is specifically designated as an “investigator.”
Hmm. I was told — to my face — by a court mediator that he could NOT even look at information I submitted which completely countered the story portrayed in court. It included handwritten notes from my daughters at a young age, and some photographs of them. But I was told that because it hadn’t been filed also with my ex (on the record) he couldn’t look at mine. THis didn’t go both ways — the information he himself had, submitted by my ex, I hadn’t received before the meeting. And I had ONE shot to state my case as to a multi-page, pre-fab, INDEXED parenting plan which I hadn’t seen in advance, to “come to an agreement” or take it back to court. My ex didn’t type at the time, and it clearly wasn’t his work. Moreover, once I (year or so later!) learned the rules of court for parenting plans involving domestic violence — this didn’t follow any of them. I suspect by then he’d already been contacted by a fatherhood-funded program attorney, who knew what to do — file for divorce and custody, and set up a parenting plan that didn’t state place, or exact times, and was GUARANTEED to produce a lot of debating and negotiating on these matters — and there was a restraining order on at the time….
I can see wisdom in the mediator NOT going beyond the court file– contrary to this article’s portrayal. How can a parent respond to invisible information he or she has not received or been served? It dilutes the legal due process.
Metroka says that Gallup went too far, conducting criminal background checks in cases where they weren’t relevant. “It’s easy to violate [parents’] due-process rights if you try to make more out of a case than is there when it’s presented to you,” Metroka says. “Emily’s position is that in every case a mediator should investigate and get every piece of evidence she can before the mediation.”
Just last month, Gallup prevailed in a grievance against the family court system over her dismissal. Arbitrator Christopher Burdick found that she “had reasonable cause to believe that Court’s Family Court Services department had violated or not complied with statutes and rules of court,” and ordered an audit of the court to investigate the claims in her grievance.
“They’re making these monumental decisions based on air,” Gallup says. “They think if you have too much information about a parent, that makes you biased. My contention is, if you have more information, that will make you less biased.”
Something doesn’t smell quite right about this situation. Perhaps Gallup is not aware, as some of us are, of the true purpose of mediation– which is to increase noncustodial parenting time, per federal grant, and allow the Secretary of the HHS to suggest (and get states to implement and evaluate) demonstrations on people that come through the courts, generating MORE revenue for those in courts employ, or at least in their entourage. She musta been a rookie….
For example, suppose — in a “mis”-guided (according to this mindset) attempt to comply with the state code, (I can’t speak to Nevada, but IF it has the rebuttable presumption against custody going to a batterer code) — she checked for a criminal background in domestic violence. This would compromise the mission of retaining federal funding and INCREASING custody to such people, and it would actually add some weight to a protective parent’s position.
OK continuing with this 2005 AFCC Coordinating the Parenting Coordinators whose job is to help IMPLEMENT an already- written coordination plan that parents are working with — people who do this must also:
Overview and Definitions
Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
. . . assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan….
[pause to adjust to the “assist . . .. to” syntax error again. OK, I’m better now …I’ll go on…]
Any legal professionals ought to know that one way to encourage a parent to comply with a written plan incorporated into any court order is, if it becomes habitual, file a contempt and seek some kind of sanction for it through the courts, putting this IN the court record..
Let us remember again – parents that comply with well-written parenting plans don’t drive more business to the courts. This behavior should NOT be encouraged……
FIRST OF ALL both parents may not need assistance. ONe may be an asshole, simply decides not to comply, thereby causing problem for either custodial or noncustodial parent, who then gets frustrated. I suppose enough of that frustration, and disruption of the children’s schedules and lives and/or someone’s work, might cause the other parent to come into a state of “needing assistance” and circuitously justify saying BOTh “parents” need this help.
“HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS” — How about someone — for god’s sake! — actually investigating what the conflict is about, i.e, analyzing it, putting that on the record, and fixing it through normal legal means, promptly? This incessant lumping of both parents into “high-conflict” when only one may have started and continued to cause it is wrong. It’s a lose-lose combination.
Any good parent has conflict with certain BEHAVIORS, one of which is called, failing to comply with court orders. Complying with court orders is a GOOD value to give children. IF the courts themselves cannot recognize this (because some organizations wish to perpetuate work for their members) then who will?
well, here’s some more decisive, to the point, and clear writing:
…by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
….facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner…
[by creating a co-dependent behavior between the parenting coordinators and the parents, in total conflict the court’s own theory that any domestic violence (etc.) issues are just disputes and parents should WORK IT OUT THEMSELVES!]
[“facilitating dispute resolution in a timely manner” and involving more court personnel is an oxymoron. It’s a contradiction of terms! Add to this Task Forces that can’t write straight, and what a mess! Most family law cases I personally know lasted a minimum of five years, some, three -times that. These professionals are most likely WHY….]
…educating parents about children’s needs. .
AHA! We come to the juicy caramel center of what this is about — another opportunity for endless education, including Kids’ Turn -type agenda..
Why don’t these professionals content themselves with HAVING and RAISING their own children — grandchildren, if they need to — and thus be able to help form new characters etc. Or, are they the cast-offs from the public education system, which is constantly having “peripheral” positions cut, such as psychologists and counselors, librarians, and sports/arts/ etc. roles?
“…..and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, . . .
“…OR the court?” Meaning, if the parties don’t approve beforehand, the COURT can make more “prior approval” decisions WITHOUT their approval or prior knowledge? (commonly called ex parte when it changes a court order, so I guess this one just means, sort of fine-tuning the terms of an existing one. If that. . . It shoulda been fine-tuned out the gate. ….
making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
In other words, high-conflict parents (some of which conflict might be with poorly-written court orders, or inappropriate decisions to start with) should become co-dependent/passive and learn to let these people make their decisions instead. Also, if some highly legitimate causes of conflict exist (like someone threatened to abduct, or did) — then how nice to have already got a new profession in place in case some illiterate judge goes back to allowing shared parenting after custody-switch, etc. (Many mothers know that the “shared parenting” with an abuser escalates in conflict, and leads to various crises, and sometimes on calling on the courts (a mistake, probably) to resolve this . . a judge will switch custody. Thereafter, she may not see her kids again — PERIOD. Or, only for pay — and a high pay — such as supervised visitation for HER (because of potential “parental alienation..”). … And so on.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>,
(Apologies today — my hyperlink function on this computer is temporarily not functional — so I am pasting titles, not links, to material discussed….).
MORE FROM TEXAS AFCC, 2007, ON THIS SAME TOPIC:
Report of the Texas Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Taskforce on Parenting Coordination
(translation: two years later, still needing more task forces..)
Members
Jack Bannin, San Antonio, TX Carrie Beaird, Dallas, TX Mike Booth, Dallas, TX Mary Bullock, San Antonio, TX Deborah Cashen, Houston, TX Jeff Coen, Dallas, TX
Bradley Craig, Arlington, TX Deborah Higgs, Galveston, TX Sondra Kaplan, Houston, TX
Toni Jo Lindstrom, Texas City, TX Susan Marsh, Houston, TX Judith Miller, Houston, TX Leta Parks, Houston, TX
Aaron Robb, Keller, TX Christy Schmidt, Dallas, TX Dina Trevino, San Antonio, TX Robin Walton, San Antonio, TX
Compiled by Aaron Robb, Chapter President August 8, 2007
Read a bit of this and see how it’s clear they wish to limit WHO can be a parenting coordinator to affilliated professions…. and missed the legislative bandwagon that might have allowed such a professional restriction… This article cites the one above, summarizing the scenario like this:
The AFCC parent organization began examining the issue of parenting coordination early in this century, forming a Taskforce on Parenting Coordination composed of nationally known experts in this emerging field.
“Nationally Known Experts in this emerging field.” . That’s “rich.” why does this, somehow, remind me of The National Fatherhood Initiative’s self-description as having been started by a “few prominent thinkers” back in the 1990s? Maybe it’s just the tone, I can’t say for sure.
“this emerging field” — -give me a break! With time, one comes to understand that in some lips the words ’emerging field” actually means a field that they (themselves, or close associates) are personally developing and promoting — in part by naming task forces after it — and it didn’t “emerge” like grass, or buds at springtime, or chickens from eggs, except that it IS sure that the seed was planted long ago that the sky’s the limit on professions that can spring out of the family court high-conflict parenting theme….
Supervised Visitation “emerged” the same way, as did “Batterer Intervention Programs.” Neither has proven particularly effective, both require lots of conferences, task forces, publications, and nonprofits to actually DO the supervising and intervening. Also those last two terms are known compromises with the battered women’s movement which in late 80s/early 1990s was much more pushing for full separation of the women and children from the danger, whether in shelters, or through full-custody.
The initial Taskforce produced a report entitled Parenting Coordination Implementation Issues in August of 2003 outlining the various forms and formats of practice that fell under the general heading of “Parenting Coordination.” The task force was reconstituted in 2003 and continued its work, expanding to examine best practices in both the United States and Canada.1
In 2004, in anticipation of growing interest in parenting coordination services in the state, Texas AFCC conducted a formal survey of our members, examining basic issues of role clarity and role delineation. At the same time Texas AFCC was approached regarding input on legislation that was being drafted regarding parenting coordination for the 2005 legislative session.
(Probably by someone affiliated with a father’s rights program… or CRC, etc.)
Responses from AFCC members to the survey came [“amazingly” given what AFCC is basically comprised of] from a mix of legal and mental health professionals, however the actual legislation regarding parenting coordination failed to address many of the prevailing opinions noted in the survey.
Chief among these was a strong consensus (89%) that to be qualified as a parenting coordinator a practitioner should be a mental health professional. A majority (56%) also noted that a parenting coordinator should be trained as both a mediator and parent educator.
If this became law, then any HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS with POORLY WRITTEN PLANS (or, one or more parents who refused to comply with them) ARE GUARANTEED TO HAVE A HIGH-PRICED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL — OR ATTORNEY — WITH A MEDIATIOR (PROMOTE MORE ACCESS FOR NONCUSTODIAL PARENT) MINDSET, AND A PENCHANT FOR EDUCATING PARENTS.
I CANNOT THINK OF ANY FIELDS I WOULD LESS LIKE HAVING IN MY PERSONAL OR RELATIONSHIP LIVES. WOULD YOU? SUPPOSE ONE PARENT JUST DECIDES TO ABANDON THE KIDS ON WEEKENDS WHEN YOU MIGHT HAVE, FOR EXAMPLE, A SOCIAL LIFE OR DATE. OR HE MIGHT… CALL IN THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL AND SIT DOWN — BOTH OF YOU — FOR MORE LECTURES ON HOW TO BE A PARENT, LET ALONE AN ADULT WITH A COMMITMENT OF SOME SORT!
THIS IS WHAT THIS GROUP APPEARS TO WANT.
A substantial majority of members (74%) also indicated that they believed parenting coordination Services should be non-confidential to allow reporting back to the court.
THIS NEXT SECTION IF FUNNY, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT:
The AFCC Board of Directors accepted the final report and Guidelines on May 21, 2005.
Unfortunately this direction from the parent organization came too late for our local group to effectively act on it. HB 252 (relating to the use of parenting plans and parenting coordinators in suits affecting the parent-child relationship) had been introduced in February 2005 and had been voted out of the House by April 2005. It was subsequently voted out of the Senate in May 2005 and sent to the governor just days after the parent organization’s years worth of work on this issue came to a close.
Sounds to me like the would-be coordinator coordinator’s task force, dreaming about expansion into Canada, wasn’t too coordinated — and didn’t pay attention (or process input from the local Texas AFCC group) in time for the parenting legislation to be voted on! They were behind the 8-ball.
And this is who is trying to restrict the profession to people like themselves!
Parenting coordination is a maturing field and nationally there are many different theoretical and practice models for services that fall under the broad heading of “parenting coordination.”
Keep your (God-damn) “practices” away from my kids, and me. If I have a broken leg, I’ll go somewhere around a medical practices. If a loose tooth (both of these factors which may occur around “high-conflict” marriages and/or divorces), a dentist. If I am short an academic degree, or wishing to enter a new field MYSELF, I will approach someone qualified in that PRACTICE and will myself engage, and PRACTICE that they are qualified to teach, forming a contract between me and that person which PROBABLY would be bound the contracts, (i.e., breaking it would be a “tort” and could be handled in CIVIL courtrooms, unlike “relationship” issues which land up in this morass of family law….)
But for the “crime” of having a relationship (marriage, or out-of-wedlock birth parent) that went sour — in other words, it wasn’t a great match, or something seriously deficient or wrong showed up — we are to be doomed FOREVER to being ordered into FAMILY COURT PRACTICE PROFESSIONS (“parents forever, right?”) by a group of people who can’t find something more useful to do with their lives, and which might require hard sciences or truly disciplined practice THEMSELVES….
Here it is — they want more “training.”
Increase education and training requirements for parenting coordinators to include basic and advanced family mediation experience as well as formal parenting coordination training for all parenting coordinators.
Commentary: Given that parenting coordination is now firmly codified as a hybrid ADR procedure it seems only logical that the state should require parenting coordinators to have family ADR training. Issues of positional vs. interest based negotiations and other mediation related issues are core to helping families progress past their disputes and adopt a healthier problem solving strategy. This is reflected in not only the AFCC Guidelines but the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Parenting Coordinator Taskforce Recommended Practice Guidelines for a Family Systems Model of Parenting Coordination within the Context of Texas Family Law report as well.
Can you do this? Read aloud the title (it’s ONE title) for another related to the courts organization (AMFT). Read it in one breath, without stop, and with a straight face. i dare you. Now picture how many more such taskforces are flying around the land, invisibly spreading bad grammar, creating emerging fields, and writing model practices for those fields, and of course setting up the entrance fees to get into them, through more training…..
Did you? Try again: The Texas association for marriage and family therapy parenting coordinator taskforce (break for the short-winded)… recommended practice guidelines for a family systems model (what other kind of models would there be for ‘parenting coordination’ Extra-familial systems model, like with the athletic department of junior’s afterschool needs, or there’s a budding gymnast in the high-conflict parenting family??) within the context of texas family law
Wow — brilliant. I myself was thinking of developing some practice guidelines that CONFLICTED with texas family law — that way, more business for the cognitive dissonance folk, mental health professionals.
They go on to note (apparently catching up with FL Attorney Liz Gates — who wrote this I bet much earlier in Therapeutic Jurisprudence )
Ethically dual roles are problematic (and highly restricted) for many professionals. {{they’re more than problematic, they create a conflict of interest….}}
Attorneys, therapists, and others who may have had a previous relationship with a family member bring history to the process that may undermine their effectiveness as a parenting coordinator. A parenting coordinator who goes on to serve in one of these other roles with a family may be seen in hindsight as self-serving, and compromises the integrity of the process.
That bird has flown the coop already. People know, parents know, they blog and write and complain on the nepotism, cronyism and backroom deals around the courts — with or without the new field of parenting coordinators.. Here’s a wise group in 2007 noticing that.. This problem is intrinsic to the family law profession, let alone an expansion in that profession..into uncharted territories where “need” is anticipated — probably because these people INCLUDE many judges who are able to order such things, if they choose to..
But, they want more training — naturally.
My friends, … about those court-ordered train the trainers trainings — I have to tell you something:
“Where the Wild Things Slush FundsAre.”
Looking for where the money went, or kickbacks tend to happen? Look no further — you got it!
From “NAFCJ: Fathers Rights and Conciliation Court Law’ (article by Cindy Ross of N. CA area):
When AFCC affiliates assist fathers get [in getting] custody and get [in getting] out of paying child support, they instigate frivolous litigation for their own financial gain. They take kickbacks and other improper payments to rig the outcomes of the cases. Judicial slush funds, such as the “hearts and flowers” fund exposed in Los Angeles Superior Court, are established using fees charged for child custody “training” seminars. [20]
Because Conciliation Court codes specify how funding is dispersed to the court itself, huge sums of money are diverted out of federal and state block grants by AFCC affiliates, in the guise of “amicable settlement of domestic and family controversies”. [15] (See Codes 1800-1852). The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was founded in 1994, to “lead a society-wide movement to confront the problem of father absence”, i.e., to embed the fathers’ rights agenda into government policies and programs. [21]
This is such OLD news, but [far too] few women seem to be acting to do anything about I. I’ve heard of more men – such as the Richard Fine folk — who at least understand the process and strongly advocate against this. No mention of this was made in the SF Weekly Article above…. and at this late stage of the game, I’d have to say that this omission is suspect. People who work in and report on these fields KNOW the basic literature that’s out on it, it is no longer an unsolved mystery…
Maybe all the world IS a stage, but we need permission to “exit stage left” from this family court system, and as we are forced into the roles, it’s time to find out who wrote the screenplay, and who’s on the Lights, who’s pulling curtains where, and who is providing the cue cards…
To Be, or Not to Be, that is the question…”
A recent hit movie “The King’s Speech” shows how a man overcame a stutter because he had to be king in the time of radio — and when Hitler was threatening Europe and Great Britain. He didn’t want to be a public speaker, OR king — and as presented, he’d suffered some serious childhood abuse, emotional and physical (like not enough food) which probaby precipitated the stutter — but he stepped up to the plate once he fired the bad speech coaches (including the ones recommending smoking!) and got an off-ball, un-doctored Australian who actually knew how trauma works, and how to get past it. The relationship was STILL voluntary, even by a king, or future king — but once it was entered into, it became successful.
We are in times like that. I’d rather be doing something else, and investigative reporting is not my primary field, and smoking out slush funds is very disturbing. But it certainly beats walking around in a daze, wondering what happened, and blaming something or someone else for the problem!
I changed from doing free PR for psychologist professionals who talk about PAS and bad custody decisions (and not slush funds, federal funds, and fatherhood funding, etc.). I changed because I missed my daughters, and I love them, and as part of this love, I want the truth out. As part of caring about my local communities, I want to spare others going through three or four years of anguish as I did (at least) BEFORE I connected some of these dots.
Remember — Three things abide, BUT, the greatest of these is charity.
How’s yours these days?
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For footnote to Joan Kelly being omipresent (sort of) in these organizations and their literatures: From 2003,
NEWSMAKINGNEWS.COM
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/ross,familycourtcorrupt2nd2,19,03.htmFamily Court Corruption, Part 2: Fathers’ Rights and Conciliation Court Law: Federally funded misogyny and pedophile protection
by Cindy Ross © 2/19/03
Numerous reports have identified bias against women and corruption in family courts across the country. In bizarre and illegal rulings, family court judges ignore or deliberately suppress evidence of male perpetrated family violence and child molest. Fathers who are batterers and sex offenders are routinely granted visitation and custody, while mothers and children trying to escape abuse are punished through financial sanctions, loss of custody, supervised visitation, jail and institutionalization. [1]
While publicly touted as “responsible fatherhood programs” official federal documents say the purpose of their programs is to provide noncustodial fathers with free attorneys to litigate for custody. [4]. . . . {{SO — read those document, just don’t buy the “party line” that it’s really all about “relationship coaching” and healing, and so forth… It ain’t.
AFCC affiliated experts who have established federal “model custody” programs using PAS methodology, include Joan Kelly, a founding official of CRC, and Judith Wallerstein of the Center for the Family in Transition.
Richard Gardner originally based his PAS theory on Wallerstein’s and Kelly’s research. [23] Joan Kelly sets up family court services programs and trains judges and “special masters” (mediators with quasi-judicial authority), using Access to Visitation grant funding. She is also connected — primarily through CRC — to Michael Lamb, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kelly and Lamb promote materials developed by Richard Gardner (and other pedophiliac experts), in conferences and seminars regarding “parenting time” and “alienation”. [8]
Judith Wallerstein, is an advisor to NFI. According to CA NOW’s “Family Court Report 2002”, in 1986, Wallerstein provided testimony — along with David Levy of CRC — to the House committee on Children, Youth and Families. regarding the “problems of single female parent families”. [24]
Members of Wallerstein’s Center for the Family in Transition and Kelly’s Northern CA Mediation Center, have “reformulated” PAS as “alienated children”, possibly to distance themselves from Richard Gardner.
However, in addition to being connected to some of the most egregious local (Marin County, CA) PAS cases, as the “Northern CA Task Force on the Alienated Child”, their group promotes PAS custody switching methods and “threat therapy” at AFCC conferences around the country and the world.
[25]Wallerstein, Horn, Eberly and others connected to NFI, CRC and AFCC have expanded the Conciliation Court agenda to include not only divorce prevention, but marriage promotion. By merging conciliation court and fathers’ rights agendas with a “faith based” marriage “movement”, they call for even more federal programs promoting “two-parent” families, through “marriage initiatives” funded by TANF/Welfare grants. [26]
And we wonder why the economy is in such crisis!
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“Why Shariah?” (Noah Feldman, at CFR), “Islam’s Double Standard” (Arthur Frederick Ides) and {No Feminine Nouns at} the Michigan Family Forum’s home (Brian Snavely): But First, Four Women…
This blog should be filed along with my ones about the Gulag Archipelago, and Bahrain Archipelago.
With respect and appreciation intended this season towards:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dr. Phyllis Chesler, Nonie Darwish, and Immaculee Iligibazi, who survived the Rwandan Holocaust in a cramped bathroom in a pastor’s house, although others who sometimes sought shelter in churches then, didn’t find it. In their books (I haven’t met any of these women, all activist and all authors, and all who overcame many odds and losses), and in reverse order:
-
Immaculée
Immaculée Ilibagiza was born in Rwanda and studied Electronic and Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Rwanda. Her life transformed dramatically in 1994 during the Rwanda genocide when she and seven other women huddled silently together in a cramped bathroom of a local pastor’s house for 91 days! During this horrific ordeal, Immaculée lost most of her family, but she survived to share the story and her miraculous transition into forgiveness and a profound relationship with God.
(title of page also: “From a country she loved to the horrors of genocide: A journey to understanding and forgiveness.”)
I love what I think this country stands for. I understand we are in a period — perhaps we have always engaged in this – of a different sort of “genocide” and the “genus” we are involved in eradicating is the word Mother and Woman as a functional reality in the major institutions of life — except we comply and fit in. what we are expected to fit in with is becoming nonpersons, and religious and sectarian violence against us and our children because we spoke up against violence and weren’t aware ahead of the family law system that is designed to STOP such speaking up and leaving it. As formerly it was “not without my children,” Nowadays it has become, “OK, but ONLY without your children…”
I think that story needs to be heard, too, and how having children, then losing them to systems, transformed each of us personally, and our relationships with the rest of the world, particularly any religious segments of it. If the U.S. is the BEST for women, then we are indeed in trouble throughout the world.
-
Nonie:
Nonie Darwish (Arabic: نوني درويش) (born 1949[1][2]) is an Egyptian-American human rights activist, and founder of Arabs For Israel, and is Director of Former Muslims United. She is the author of two books: Now They Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror and Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Darwish’s speech topics cover human rights, with emphasis on women’s rights and minority rights in the Middle East. Born in Egypt, Darwish is the daughter of an Egyptian Army lieutenant general, who was called a “shahid” by the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser,[3] after being killed in a targeted killing in 1956. Darwish blames “the Middle Eastern Islamic culture and the propaganda of hatred taught to children from birth” for his death. In 1978, she moved with her husband to the United States, and converted to Christianity there. After September 11, 2001 she has written on Islam-related topics.[3]
She was too outspoken. Respectable organizations headed for the hills when
By: Pratik Chougule
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Where are the moderates of the Islamic world? The question has befuddled Americans since the September 11 attacks. Indeed, while President Bush and other leaders of the West have fervently defended Islam as a “religion of peace,” there has been a conspicuous dearth of prominent Middle Eastern leaders openly willing to criticize radical Islam or defend the United States and Israel in the War on Terrorism. A recent incident at Brown University this past November sheds light on the perplexing issue.In late November, Hillel, Brown University’s prominent Jewish group on campus, invited Nonie Darwish to give a lecture in defense of Israel and its human rights record, relative to the Islamic world.Her father, Mustafa Hafez, founded the Fedayeen, which launched raids across Israel’s southern border. When Darwish was eight years old, her father became the first targeted assassination carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces in response to Fedayeen’s attacks, making him a martyr or “shahid.” During his speech nationalizing the Suez Canal, Nasser vowed Egypt would take revenge for Hafez’s death. Nasser asked Nonie and her siblings, “Which one of you will avenge your father’s death by killing Jews?”
After his death, Darwish’s family moved to Cairo, where she attended Catholic high school and then the American University in Cairo. She worked as an editor and translator for the Middle East News Agency, until emigrating to the United States in 1978, ultimately receiving United States citizenship. After arriving in the United States, she converted from Islam to evangelical Christianity based on her belief that even American mosques preach a radical, anti-peace message. Due to her decision to convert, Darwish instantly became branded as an “apostate” in several prominent Muslim circles. After 9/11, Darwish began writing columns critical of radical Islam, and authored a book Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror. She is also the founder of the organization Arabs for Israel, which pledges, “respect and support the State of Israel,” welcome a “peaceful and diverse Middle East,” reject “suicide/homicide terrorism as a form of Jihad,” and promote “constructive self-criticism and reform” in the Islamic world.
When Hillel announced its decision to invite Darwish to speak, the Brown University Muslim Students’ Association promptly insisted that Hillel rescind the invitation. Their reasoning: Darwish is “too controversial.” Similarly, the Sarah Doyle’s Women’s Center, which Hillel had contacted to cosponsor the event given Darwish’s advocacy of women’s rights, refused to support the lecture.
After a brief period of internal debate, Hillel buckled to the pressure and withdrew its invitation. In an open letter explaining the decision, Hillel cited a “desire to maintain constructive relationships” with the Muslim Students Association. Inviting Darwish, they argue, “would not be a prudent method of Israel advocacy.” Defending the decision, one member of Hillel stated that Jews “should be especially sensitive about comments which criticize strict religious observance and deem it unacceptable in America.” This member was particularly concerned that his Muslim peers “were extremely offended by this characterization of them as ‘extremists.’”
Amidst a flurry of negative press, including stories in the New York Post,
National Review Online, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the University moved into damage-control mode.
A woman, presumably Brown student, responds in the Daily Herald (newsletter) “Nathalie Alyon ’06: Nonie non grata?“:
The recent Nonie Darwish cancellation betrays Brunonian* values
Published: Thursday, November 30, 2006
{**a.k.a. “Brown,” give me a break with the language, eh?}
I was shocked to read a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report that Nonie Darwish, a Palestinian peace activist, would not be speaking at Brown because the Muslim Student Association, the Muslim chaplain and the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life are afraid what she has to say is controversial (“Free speech controversy builds as pro-Israel speech canceled at Brown,” Nov. 20). What happened to the Brown I know and love, the haven of liberal education that encourages free thought and debate? Apparently, we have turned into a university easily intimidated when the subject matter gets sensitive.
And, may I add, possibly when the speaker is also female… (and a mother at the time, I think)….
What about Darwish is so offensive to Muslims that Hillel students decided to cancel her appearance to avoid jeopardizing the wonderful relationship between Jewish and Muslim groups on campus? …
Are the Muslim Student Association and the Muslim chaplain not willing to face the reality that there are people using Islam to incite violence, promote terrorism and spread hate across the world? Would they rather keep things simple, inhale hookah smoke with a couple of Jews in the name of multiculturalism and call it a day?
I think the answer there is self-evident….
Now that we know who is not allowed to speak on campus, let’s take a look at some events that have taken place
Good. This young woman (presumably) is on the right track to feminism {a.k.a. females speaking their minds} in the real world…
By the way, isn’t Nonie Darwish (along with President Obama) a PURRRfect example of what risk any fatherless child is of teen pregnancy, runaway, drug use, etc. Look at her disgraceful track record, educationally, and as to contributions to this world. What a burden on society.
(my point being — WARS, too, help make fatherlessness; don’t blame the Mamas!)
She also got silenced at Princeton and Columbia — so mothers silenced in the courts are perhaps in good company? Granted, both quotes from known conservative ezines (exception the BrownDaily, which I don’t know about). But it kinda makes you wonder, eh?
…
Nonie Darwish, the executive director of Former Muslims United and author of Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, was scheduled to speak at Columbia and Princeton last week, but both events were canceled under pressure from Muslim groups on campus.
Darwish, a soft-spoken ex-Muslim and daughter of an Islamic martyr, is a champion of the rights of women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, and leader of the group Arabs for Israel. She had been planning to speak on “Sharia Law and Perspectives on Israel.” She is one of the few courageous voices who speak out against Islamic anti-Semitism and the oppression of women under Sharia.
She is eminently qualified to speak about this, having lived it. Her education is fine. It’s the topic which is politically incorrect even in “liberal” circles..
At Princeton, she was invited three weeks ago and was scheduled to speak last Wednesday. But on Tuesday evening, Arab Society president Sami Yabroudi and former president Sarah Mousa issued a joint statement, claiming: “Nonie Darwish is to Arabs and Muslims what Ku Klux Klan members, skinheads and neo-Nazis are to other minorities, and we decided that the role of her talk in the logical, intellectual discourse espoused by Princeton University needed to be questioned.”
??Character assassination, sounds like to me… Good grief, here’s a Princeton Commentary on it:
Darwish herself, who has never advocated violence against anyone, pointed to this unfounded moral equivalence to neo-Nazism as “the worst kind of intimidation and character assassination aimed at those who dare to question, analyze, or criticize.” And she found it ironic that while her punishment for speaking out as an apostate against Islam’s worst practices was silence at Princeton, it would be death under Sharia law.
But more than the issue of free speech, the scandal has exposed in the religious community a problematic link between faith and politics, one that is the root of any inter-religious conflict. When asked if the religion of Islam were inseparable from politics, Imam Sultan explained, “There are a whole host of theories on how Islam can interact with politics, from the least imposing to the most imposing ways. I find myself agreeing more with the former, but I cannot deny that it is a source of great debate and difference of opinion among Muslims.”
(in “Censored: The Politics behind silencing Nonie Darwish” (Dec. 09, in “THE PRINCETON TORY A JOURNAL OF CONSERVATIVE AND MODERATE THOUGHT)
Yesterday, I completed a QNA with the National Review about honor killings/”honorcides” which appears there today and which you may readHERE. I also did a long interview with a major new service on the subject which is slated to appear tomorrow. Like many other wire services and like the mainstream media, ideas such as mine are usually sidelined, marginalized, attacked, or simply “disappeared.” I do not think this will happen tomorrow.
And now, I have a number of honorable allies. One surely is NOW-New York State President, Marcia Pappas who is now also being attacked for her having linked the Buffalo beheading with “honor killings,” with “Islam,” and even with “Islamic terrorism.” Indeed, she was attacked yesterday by a coalition of eight domestic violence victim advocacy providers in Erie County where the Buffalo beheading took place. I quickly posted a blog which dealt with this, (it deserves a longer piece), but I mainly praised the recent rally in London which was sponsored by One Law For All.
Lo and Behold: A second honorable ally wrote to me. I want to share what he said. His name is Khalim Massoud, and he is the President of Muslims Against Sharia Law, an international organization. After reading my most recent blog HERE, he wrote me as follows:
“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that (the) Buffalo beheading is a honorcide. We, Muslims Against Sharia, prefer this term to honor murder. Beheading is not just a murder, it’s a ritual. It’s a form of control and humiliating a family member who “stepped over the line,” in this case, wife taking out a TRO (order of protection) and planning to divorce her husband.
Ms. Pappas must be commended for her courage to call a spade a spade. (The) PC-climate presents considerable danger for future honorcide victims. Trying to sweep cultural/religious aspects of honorcide under the rug keeps the problem from being addressed. While most of the media wouldn’t touch the issue with a ten-foot pole, (for) fear they would be portrayed as Islamophobic, a few brave women, the true feminists, like Marcia Pappas and Phyllis Chesler are speaking out on the subject just to be slammed by so-called victim advocacy groups because they dare to expose Islamism’s dirty laundry. Muslim women in America are at great risk because Muslim establishment, with help of the media, wants to portray honorcide as fiction.
Honorcide has no place in the modern world, but especially in the West. It must be forcefully confronted; not written off as domestic violence. Almost a year ago, MASH started STOP HONORCIDE! initiative. The goal is to have honorcide classified as a hate crime. The Buffalo case is a perfect example why honorcide should be a hate crime. The suspect is being charged with the 2nd degree murder. If honorcide were classified as a hate crime, he’d be charged with the 1st degree murder.”
Khalim Massoud
President
Muslims Against Sharia
OK, now again briefly (since I mentioned above), Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
Again, I find it a little disconcerting she is a scholar at a conservative think-tank also known to have “fatherhood” advocacy within its ranks… (AEI.org).
Biography
We were on our front yard of white sand. It was a hot day, like almost all days in Mogadishu. There was nothing unusual about the flies that irritated us or the ants that I avoided for fear of their sharp, agonizing bites. If they happened to crawl under my dress or I sat on them accidentally they would punish me with a sting that made me shriek with pain. That shrieking and hopping about would earn disapproval and even a slap from Grandmother.
I think I was 6 or 7 on that day, maybe younger, but I know I was not 8 because my family had not yet left Somalia. Grandmother was moralizing as usual. On that day, like all other days, she was admonishing me to remember my place.
There was yet another thing I did wrong and I did not have the ability to set right. If only I wasn’t so dimwitted; if only I understood how I was to blame for the flaw that granny abhorred so much.“Cross your legs,” she said, “lower your gaze. You must learn not to laugh, and if you must laugh then see to it that you don’t cackle like the neighbor’s hen.” We had no chickens but the noise of the neighbors’ hens screeching and hooting and trespassing was enough for me to get the message.
“If you must go outside make sure you are accompanied and that you and your company walk as far away from men as possible,” she said.
To my grandmother’s annoyance, I responded with the question: “But Grandmother, what about Mahad?” My brother Mahad never seemed to invite this kind of endless preaching from Grandmother. She answered me like the obtuse child she decided I was.
“Mahad is a man! Your misfortune is that you were born with a split between your legs. And now, we the family must cope with that reality!”
I thought: There was yet another thing I did wrong and I did not have the ability to set right. If only I wasn’t so dimwitted; if only I understood how I was to blame for the flaw that granny abhorred so much.
“Ayaan, you are stubborn, you are reckless and you ask too many questions. That is a fatal combination. Disobedience in women is crushed and you are disobedient. It is in you, it is in your bone marrow. I can only attempt to tell you what is right.”
Grandmother pointed to a piece of sheep fat on the ground. It was covered with ants, and flies were zooming above it, landing on it, sucking it. It was a vile piece of meat that was being warmed by the sun, and a trickle of fat seeped out of it. She said: “You are like that piece of sheep fat in the sun. If you transgress, I warn you men will be no more merciful to you than those flies and ants are to that piece of fat.”
A lot has changed in my life since those days in the sun with Grandmother. Today when I look back I see that I have proven her wrong. I disobeyed, true to my nature, I transgressed, but I avoided the destiny of the sheep fat.
Sitting in an airplane, I have on my lap the memoir of Nujood Ali. The title of the book is “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.” My reading list contains another book, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is called “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.” The reason I associate the two books is because of their description of marriage and divorce, and particularly the word “painful.”
Nujood was 8 years old when a delivery man approached her father in Sana, Yemen. After the initial expression of hospitality, the delivery man stated his business: He was looking for a wife. Nujood’s two older sisters were already married, so she was the logical bride, regardless of her age. Her father accepted $750 in dowry money and gave away his 8-year-old daughter. When Nujood’s mother and sisters appealed to him, pleading that she was too young to get married, the father responded with the excuse used by all Muslim fathers who marry off their daughters before they come of age: “Too young? When the Prophet wed Aisha she was only 9.”
In fact, Muhammad wed Aisha when she was 6. According to Scripture, the Prophet waited for Aisha to begin menstruating before consummating the marriage. Nujood’s new husband, Faez, showed no such restraint.
In painful detail, Nujood describes a real nightmare on her wedding night: How she runs away, how she seeks help, how she struggles, how he touches her and she wriggles out of his arms, how she calls out to her mother- in-law. “Aunty,” she screams, “somebody help me!” But there was silence. She describes how he gets hold of her, his awful smell, a mixture of tobacco and onions. She recounts the childish threat she makes–“I will tell my father”–and the husband’s reply: “You can tell your father whatever you like. He signed the marriage contract, he gave me permission to marry you.”
From the time Nujood was able to gather her wits about her she set about planning her escape. The story is recommended reading for anyone who seriously wants to understand what Muslim women can be subjected to.
In Yemen, Nujood’s father, her husband, the judges, the policemen and the broader society–with the exception of a very few–view her situation as normal. And Yemen is by no means unique.
When I turn to Elizabeth Gilbert’s description of a painful divorce it becomes clear to me what feminism has accomplished in the West. Gilbert decides to divorce her husband not because he was forced upon her, but because there is something intangible that he cannot give her. She chose to marry him. Every decision she made was voluntary: to marry him, to buy property with him, even to try for a child. Yet still she felt unfulfilled.
The deep sense of dissatisfaction leads her to abandon her marriage, the life of a privileged woman. She goes to Italy to find a piece of herself, the pleasure of eating. She goes to India to find another piece of herself: the pleasure of devotion. In Indonesia she finds yet another piece of herself: the balance between the pleasures of eating and praying. In India she finds a guru who answers her spiritual needs.
Gilbert’s story shows what feminism can achieve elsewhere, especially in the Muslim world.
But her story also demonstrates something else. Those women in the West who, like Gilbert, have harvested what the early feminists fought for have almost no affinity for women like Nujood–and like me when I was a little girl.
This is not to pass judgment on Gilbert. On the contrary, I admire her intellectual honesty and her pursuit of self-knowledge. The woman I have become in the West now feels closer to the Gilberts of this world than the Nujoods. But I find myself asking as I read these two books: What can current Western feminism offer the Nujoods?
I often am asked by my Western audiences: “Where did feminism go wrong?” I think the answer is staring us in the face. Western feminism hasn’t gone wrong at all–it has accomplished its mission so completely that a woman like Elizabeth Gilbert can marry freely and then leave her husband equally freely, purely in order to pursue her own culinary and religious inclinations. The victory of feminism allows women like Gilbert to shape their own destinies.
But there is a price for this victory: The price is a solipsism so complete that a great many Western women have lost the ability to empathize with women not only in the Islamic world, but also in China, India and other countries; women whose suffering takes forms that are now largely unknown in the West, save in the ghettos of immigrants. They are too busy hunting for the perfect prayer mat or pasta to give two hoots about a case of child-rape in Yemen.
The best we can hope for is not for the West to invade other countries in the hope of emancipating their women. That is neither realistic nor desirable (and remains our least plausible war aim in Afghanistan).
The best we can hope for is a neo-feminism that reminds women in the West of the initial phases of their liberation movement.
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Reader Quiz — What Decade Were These Stories? About Fathers..
My last post (Luzerne County) was at least a triple-header, ending with some emotion over a mother of three who has taken her case to the international level in disgrace at the U.S. treatment of her civil rights.
I am changed as I blog also. Maybe it’s just another bunch of incidents to you, but to me, I learn and expand the context of this system, look at its history, reflect when compared with my immediate reality and acquired readings.
What I learned — yesterday — is this: Restraining orders are not enforceable, and probably never were. IF a police officer wishes to arrest, or needs to, the RO may make his job easier. But if he or she witnessed a violation of it, and does NOT wish to arrest, the protected person has no entitlement to that arrest, no matter whose life is at risk. Now that “Castle Rock v. Gonzales” has gone to the Supreme Court and been turned back, it is being quoted in similar cases to protect the officers (not the women or children). While most of government’s operations are self-justified on providing services and protection to the populace, who they are diligently training to expect this from them (and not from within or their local communities). This is closer to feudalism, serfdom, and monarchy.
U.S., Rome, or the British Empire?
It’s time to expose the truths that in the United States of America, and have moved from being “the colonies” (with the colonized populations that came along, or were removed from their lands during westward expansion) to being colonized (if not virtually cannibalized) by our own elected leaders, many who have some real “bad attitudes” towards those they are supposed to represent and serve. Power tends to congregate with power, and unless it’s kept in check, will simply continue to do so, justifying it with manipulation and manufactured “needs.”
- (#1) we are closer to monarchy then ever before, and willingly/passively in more denial of it also, and
- (#2) that this emperor has no clothes has been known for a long time; but the tacit “Bread-and-circuses” agreement to pretend we don’t know, is wearing as thin as the “social services” provided by the superstructure. and
- (#3) in a country such as the U.S., with this Constitution elected officials are sworn with an oath to uphold, the pretense that in practice we are actually OPERATING as a republic (not democracy) is even more deceptive.
Who has the bread, the weapons, and the supply lines to the decision-makers? Who’s issuing the propaganda? That’s the power base. As of about 1980, 1991 (creation of the Health & Human Services/Administration for Children and Families Dept./Operational Div. in the Executive Branch of Government of which the CEO is our President), the fields of propagation (family design) and the downward to Head Start & Home Visitation (education) up through university (foundations sponsoring studies and institutes, often regarding fatherhood and marriage, and the entire work force) have gone from idolizing motherhood (while tolerating beating mothers) and, in response to mothers getting OUT of some of that (feminism/violence against women movement, battered shelters, etc.) to scapegoating single mothers on welfare (for being on welfare), (see bottom of my post), to simply eliminating the word mother from association with the word “family” or “children.”
This is starting to resemble the planned production of human beings from womb to tomb, with the aide of pharmaceutics, apparently, and mental health professionals to categorize and drug the dissidents, which any mother in her right mind would be when she’s been beaten in the home, or terrorized there (or for attempting to leave it) and has noticed — which is what mothers do — the effect of this on her children. They are educated to subjugation and only to the level of their intended place in a fully managed society.
When I say “womb” to “tomb,” I do mean just that . . . . It’s being studied and categorized, and one major database is at ICPSR below. Fertility, lethality, and population studies in 3 urban centers (Chicago, Boston, San Antonia, TX).
Those “in” and cooperate on the planning and distribution of this will prosper, while the supply lasts, and receive government grants and contracts in abundance, which will then compromise them from informing the subject matter (human beings) what the overall plan is. For example
- HQ in Denver: PSI (“policy-studies.com” is the URL, “Performance, Services, Integrity” is the motto)
- Under Child Support Enforcement (one of the 3 major “solutions” area they outsource):
- Noncustodial Parent Programs (“Through our innovative approach, PSI can help increase your collections and improve results for families. Our NCP program expertise extends across the following areas”)
- Case management and community resource referrals
- Enhanced child support services
- Employment and training assistance
- Peer support for NCPs
- Parenting and conflict resolution classes
- Access and visitation services
- Mediation services
- Mental health and substance abuse referrals
- Legal referrals
- Noncustodial Parent Programs (“Through our innovative approach, PSI can help increase your collections and improve results for families. Our NCP program expertise extends across the following areas”)
- Under Child Support Enforcement (one of the 3 major “solutions” area they outsource):
- HQ in Los Angeles: AFCC (“Association of Family & Conciliation Courts“)
- AFCC brings together members of multiple disciplines in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, from all over the world. As a nonprofit professional association, AFCC is unique because members do not share a common profession. Instead, AFCC members share a strong commitment to education, innovation and collaboration in order to benefit communities, empower families and promote a healthy future for children.
- “History of Innovation and Positive Change”For more than 45 years, AFCC and its members have served as a catalyst for generating major reforms. Dispute resolution processes such as child custody mediation, parenting coordination, and divorce education are just a few of the innovative ideas developed by AFCC members. AFCC developed Models Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediators, Child Custody Evaluators and Parenting Coordinators. Task forces and special projects address the ongoing challenges faced by AFCC members and the families they serve. AFCC actively disseminates innovations and ideas {“Parental Alienation, anyone? Mandatory mediation, anyone? Shared parenting, presumption anyone?”} to its members. The ripple effect can be seen in courts and communities throughout the world. {ONE of those stories I copy at length, below, in blue. The ripple effect was most definitely felt, and you can read about it, below.}
- HQ in Denver: what I call “CPR” (Center or Policy Research) [Since 1981, 6 women, only!]
- Childcare and Education;
- Child Support;
- Child Welfare;
- Court Services;
- Health and Medical Issues;
- Incarceration and Reentry;
- Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution;
- Fatherhood and Child Access;
- Poverty; and
- Violence and Intimate Partner Violence.
- (OH, and CPR’ssttreamlined connection Connection with Feds:likely HHS & DOJ depts:
- “To make contracting with CPR easier for federal government clients, CPR is a Management, Organizational and Business Improvement Services (MOBIS) and U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) contract”
- In Ann Arbor, MI: “ICPSR” (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, since 1962 ) Member universities/institutions HERE:
-
ICPSR partners with several federal statistical agencies and foundations to provide access to their data resources.
- search on CPR person “Jessica Pearson” – 1 study (listed below, this is link to it)
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Study Design: Data collection involved a collaboration with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) in the administration and analysis of this survey. Court programs providing divorce mediation and/or custody evaluations in 1993 were targeted. The questionnaire was mailed in late 1993 to 200 institutional members of the AFCC and active providers of family and divorce services in the National Center for State Courts database. A total of 149 public-sector divorce mediation and custody/visitation counseling providers responded with information on their official policies and procedures for identifying domestic violence among the population served, and divorce mediation practices and policies in cases with allegations of spousal violence. Sample: Institutional members of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and active family and divorce service providers from the National Center for State Courts database.
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- search on CPR person “Thoennes” — 5 studies:
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20358 Integrated Approaches to Manage Multi-Case Families in the Criminal Justice System in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Deschutes and Jackson Counties, Oregon, 1999-2005
Thoennes, Nancy2005
3142 Role of Stalking in Domestic Violence Crime Reports Generated by the Colorado Springs Police Department, 1998
Tjaden, Patricia; Thoennes, Nancy1998
2566 Violence and Threats of Violence Against Women and Men in the United States, 1994-1996
Tjaden, Patricia; Thoennes, Nancy1996
2561 Divorce Mediation and Domestic Violence in the United States, 1993
Pearson, Jessica1993
3542 Evaluating a Collaborative Intervention Between Health Care and Criminal Justice in Harris County, Texas, 2001-2002
McFarlane, Judith; Malecha, Ann2002
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Did I mention that Jessica Pearson is also (per some sources) a founding member of the AFCC, if not also CRC?
- In fact AFCC, CRC, CPR, PSI, HHS funded studies, and conclusions that MOST of our nation’s real poverty, inner-city, crime & juvenile delinquency problems is simply the ration of sex/conception/marriage, i.e., too few fathers (as opposed to, poor-quality fathers) in the home, and that the solution to this is through seamlessly blending mental health services with child support services, with the legal process — tend to congregate around similar key players.
- Don’t believe me? See RandiJames’ “The List“ or Liz Richards pointing this out in 1993 “Fathers Rights and corrupt judicial cronies,” or again, in 2010, to the House Ways & Means Committee (found at House.gov, this committee, June 17, 2010 hearings, on left side), or an indignant “Fathers Battling Injustice” 2001 complaint “Liz Richards Hates Fathers with a Passion, which provides (if you scroll down) a good listing of key players and their interrelationships — including those on the CRC (Children’s Rights Council) 501(c)3 incorporation papers, and tying into others pushing mediation and Gardner’s “PAS” philosophies through the courts. I’ll try to upload that listing….
Around 1998, a disgruntled grandfather — and CPA — started tracking some of the founding documents of this AFCC, and has something to say about the money trail related to Jessica Pearson of CPR, and AFCC, who weems to be (with others) women of some real foresight and planning, and ingenuity in desgining systems — and evading tax accountability. THIS is listed UNDER “Is Justice for sale in L.A.” a.k.a. at “johnnypumphandle.com”
-
- :Mr. Bryer’s Tort Claim of 1998. You can hear his tone of indignation and upset, and he flat-out calls this Mafia, RICO, money-laundering, etc. The people he is talking about are listed in part, above. I doubt if he ever got justice, or compensation (let alone more discovery), but at least me blew the whistle!. People who want to “reform” the courts ought to at least read the material. OR, they could go back and try to reason more with a professional that may or may not be one of these type of conspirators from long ago. The system remains, I’m pretty well deducing at this point.
- Another take on AFCC et al.: He’s not talking psychology or sociology, but money, IRS, EIN#s and incorporations…
- DESCRIPTION: The ACCUSED ( by this complaint) are part of an underground of white collar criminals who are involved in the theft of CITY, COUNTY, STATE, and FEDERAL money. The scheme started before their time as an organization known as the CONFERENCE OF CONCILIATION COURTS. That organization changed its identity and assumed the name ASSOCIATION OF FAMILY CONCILIATION COURTS. Using various identity changes, the organization was listed in the LOS ANGELES SUPERVISORS DIRECTORY in 1993 as JUDGES TRUST FUND ACCOUNTING.The crime ring is an underground Mafia that posed as the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – by using the FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT IDENTIFICATION NUMBER 95-6000927. In recent dramatic announcements, the INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has informed me that the EIN or FEIN number assigned to the latest version of the organization – the – LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION – is an EIN that was not assigned to the organization. It Is a COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES EIN!
I previously attempted to get this discovery – in the lawsuit BRYER vs PENTONEY – but 298 judges and commissioners in LOS ANGELES were disqualified on a ruse orchestrated by JUDGE GARY KLAUSNER – a ring leader of the scheme. JUDGE GARY KLAUSNER’S name is on the signature card of BANK OF AMERICA account listed under the name LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION EIN 95-6000927.
I was forced into the corrupt county – ORANGE COUNTY – where a co-conspirator named JAMES P. GRAY told me he would throw me in jail if I tried to make any more discoveries. FEARING FOR MY LIFE in a county that is FOREIGN to me – I dismissed my case without prejudice and continued to seek discovery away from the strength of ORANGE COUNTYCONCLUSION: My family and myself have been robbed of our money and our rights by a conspiracy that has operated since 1962. In 1962 a JUDGE NAMED ROGER ALTON PFAFF and his cohort – MEYER ELKIN. The association was called the CONFERENCE OF CONCILIATION COURTS. This association routed money through the LOS ANGELES COUNTY CONCILIATION COURT -111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles California, 90012, ROOM 241. In 1969 – the association incorporated and has NEVER PAID taxes. Assuming they used EIN 95-6000927 – then duping the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT was easy. In 1979 the corporation was suspended. There is no record that they surrendered their bank account or the EIN. In California – the organization filed as a CIVIC LEAGUE – Revenue and Tax Code 23701g. A CONCILIATION COURT is NOT A CIVIC LEAGUE. The exemption certificate was mailed to a lawyer named Michael Aaronson at P.O. Box 1055, San Carlos California 94070. The STATE 3500 papers states the organization was to improve marriage counseling. However, conciliation court is a STATUTORILY mandated function of the COURT – not a private corporation for lying and thieving judges and their court staff. The income was alleged to be derived from dues and contributions. In reality, the funds came from laundering legal education money through the COURT CONCILIATION DEPARTMENT through the FINANCE DEPARTMENT.
In an incredible BREACH – a Judge from Detroit Michigan was listed as the Second Vice President His name is Victor J. Baum. The corporation number is 576876. I have no record of what EIN they used.
In 1981 – I presume their bank account was still open and they created a new identity called the Association of Family Conciliation Courts. [CPR, above, dates to 1981 also as a nonprofit] This time – Margaret Little – FAMILY COURT SERVICES for LOS ANGELES, and a Colorado individual named Jessica Pearson orchestrated yet another version of the LOS ANGELES COUNTY COURTHOUSE SCHEME. Pearson borrowed the EIN of the WISCONSIN AFCC and claimed her office was in Colorado as an ILLINOIS corporation. The LOS ANGELES COUNTY COURTHOUSE became PEARSON’S and Dr MARGARET LITTLE’S California – FOREIGN – CORPORATION.
- (WI, Colorado, L.A. and IL if you can keep up with that…)
- I just found a strange, but possibly corroborating 1986 document, the “February 1986 Newsletter of the Alabama Court News, “Newsletter of the Alabama Judicial System” On page 3, it reads, under headline: “Federal Grant funds Sexual Abuse Study:
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“The Research Unit of the …(AFCC) and the American Bar Association have been awarded a grant from the federal dept. of Human Development Services* to study sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases. The goal of the study is to find how court officials [such as…?] are presently handling such matters, identify preferred procedures, and develop educational materials on the subject.” “Court officials [sic] desiring to participate in the study should contact AFCC at the following address:
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- Ms. Jessica Pearson
- AFCC/Research Unit, ?720 Emerson St. Denver, CO 80218
- (303) 837-1555
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- [Wow… Preferred procedures for handling sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases, such as — Gardner’s theories? They want to educate judges how to rule?] Also – it says since 1981 — at that address:]
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[*Note: the HUGE “HHS that now dispenses welfare, child support, medicare, head start funds, and sometimes is the largest (as to expenses) Exec Branch Dept — was formed in 1991, as I recall. This is 5 years earlier).
- DESCRIPTION: The ACCUSED ( by this complaint) are part of an underground of white collar criminals who are involved in the theft of CITY, COUNTY, STATE, and FEDERAL money. The scheme started before their time as an organization known as the CONFERENCE OF CONCILIATION COURTS. That organization changed its identity and assumed the name ASSOCIATION OF FAMILY CONCILIATION COURTS. Using various identity changes, the organization was listed in the LOS ANGELES SUPERVISORS DIRECTORY in 1993 as JUDGES TRUST FUND ACCOUNTING.The crime ring is an underground Mafia that posed as the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – by using the FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT IDENTIFICATION NUMBER 95-6000927. In recent dramatic announcements, the INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has informed me that the EIN or FEIN number assigned to the latest version of the organization – the – LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION – is an EIN that was not assigned to the organization. It Is a COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES EIN!
- In fact the information arm is one of the most important, to quell rebellion before it gets going.
Maybe Rome went down because of lead in the pipes, or maybe some “karma” (or god) just got sick of all the slaughter for entertainment. Ever read about what happened in that Colosseum?
Back to this millennium — and the last decades
of the last one (1980-2010). In re: marriage, abuse, divorce, custody..
And the concept of “protection from abuse” or “restraining orders” as if they were NOT certifiably insane, as to fulfilling their supposed purpose of protecting or restraining.
While the literature tends to focus on, “it’s just a piece of paper and can’t stop a bullet,” the ones we REALLY can’t count on are the arresting officers. It’s an additional component of Russian Roulette that a woman can’t afford. And suing for any sort of damages on the basis of, they had a duty to protect, a procedural due process right to the victim, a substantive due process right to the victim, or in short, any consequences that “absolute judicial immunity” or the 11th amendment wouldn’t make LEGALLY protected (let alone the practical aspects) — they don’t, and probably never did.
Some judges are crooked — I don’t know how many. Some attorneys are also, and get nailed on RICO like the Luzerne judges did, RICO (“Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations“) being a criminal enterprise. There’s a case I may post out of suburban Chicago (older) where the husband (an attorney) did murder for hire, but not until he’d conspired in advance to wire-tap (jealous), someone had been prepared to dispose of the body (i.e., of his wife) and someone had been prepared to obstruct the investigation. (Alan & Dianne G. Masters, West Suburban Chicago, 1982 she disappears~ 1988 RICO charges)
As RICO does require some organizational skills, and Masters had already been engaged in other forms of crime, all the players to add murder-for-hire to this were in place, and he didn’t resist the temptation to engage, showing us to drop our illusions that every person in public office, or in positions of power, influence, and with access to streams of $$ isn’t per se there for service. Some are, some aren’t. And the ones that aren’t would be normally attracted to people in compromised situations (like a troublesome traffic ticket, an illegal enterprise of their own, or divorcing with children from a frighteningly dangerous spouse who’s already committed some crimes against your body, or your child’s). This attorney was acting more like a pimp with a stable, and some affiliate marekting reps in uniform. Maybe he liked the thrill of the danger and risk (one sees definite business skills that migh twork just as well in legal activities) or maybe it was simple greed.
It didn’t save her life, and no one was ever charged for murder, but the three “perps” got caught on racketeering and put away for a good many years, and fined. Oh yeah, and he had a $100,000 life insurance policy on his wife also.
So are some officers. And some are good. – – – – that’s just life. Why, then, (though) when women come for help, were they then (1990s) and now (2000s) doling out protection from abuse orders as if they were reliably enforceable? They aren’t. They’re real good at getting men angry though.
~ ~ ~ ~I can’t put my story up (or too much of it). But it’s been so many years in this system here. My infrastructure is repeatedly broken down, year after year, and access to things like transportation, (sometimes food), internet, health care (uninsured presently) just shouldn’t be.
~ ~ ~ ~If you have not been in a situation similar to the one I’m about to post (the part below is summary of her judicial proceedings after deciding to leave– having gotten a real severe beating (while naked), a threat for another, having had a young daughter molested by a visiting stepson, her husband was no inner city young black male, but a nasty computer analyst who’d (it turned out) abused his first wife, too.
~ ~ ~ ~Sleep deprivation is a factor and technique of weakening someone (I know). Attack on personal private parts (ditto). Rules almost uniformly designed to remove one’s humanity, with severe punishment for falling short (and they’re impossible to fulfil) with no rule for him. . . . .Having to choose which child you can do more to protect, potentially sacrificing something important for the other. Having your strength or skills as a professional work against you post-divorce. Historic revisionism (no remorse or acknowledgement of injury, and of course the father was the real caretaker all those years). Health care professionals treating injuries and not really asking questions. Your kids watching the assaults.
I’ll pick up this story mid-stream. See if you recognize the characters: judge, psychologists, attorneys (#1, 2, and 3), theme of supervised visitation, and her knowledge that if she requested it, he’d go for custody, professionals continually minimizing the situation and playing their own games . . . all too familiar.
I want to say something about “stories.” THEY HELPED ME while I was in the abusive relationship. One of the cruelest things is the isolation and dealing with the man’s anger when he perceives you may be connecting with someone who might validate or connect with you, and to whom you might report. You might get out, but there also may (or may not) be retaliation for doing so. Or you might be put through hell beforehand, so you get out, in public, in trauma, shaking, or in shock. One trick pulled frequently in our home (with kids) was I’d have enough gas in the car to get there (when a car was available) but not enough to get back. Hearing of women who got out HELPED me. If nothing else, to feel less guilty.
I pick up the story mid-stream, and admit that I am exhausted today.
Overall, I found the lawyers and psychologists very self–promoting and egotistical. It seemed as if everyone was having a good time, playing the game of litigation and psychology. All the while, my life was on the line. My children and I did not matter. I also felt like the lawyers and psychologists were running a cash register business at my expense. They were a lot more interested in my money than my welfare. The first two years of my divorce proceedings cost me more than twenty–five thousand dollars.
As incredible as it might sound, the judge who heard my custody case had an outstanding protective order against him by his ex–wife. I also sensed very strongly that the judge did not like me. For these reasons, I told my lawyer I wanted to seek the judge’s recusal. My lawyer dismissed me, saying, “You’ll just get someone worse.”
@ @ @ @ @Z
I probably never would have gotten Daniel back, except that Russ’s live–in girlfriend (with whom he is still living) contacted the children’s psychologist to report that he was abusing Daniel. This was four or five months after Russ had gained custody of Daniel. I think the girlfriend made her revelation partly because I had told her that Russ was planning to seek full custody of Elizabeth, too. Russ was not really taking care of the kids; the girlfriend was. When she learned that he would be going after Elizabeth too, she said, “WHAT???!!!” I think she cared about the children and knew that Russ’s having custody would be harmful and dangerous for them, plus, I doubt she was interested in being the caretaker for both kids.
After learning about Russ’s abuse of Daniel, I immediately went to my lawyer (Lawyer #3), demanding an immediate petition for a change of custody. He said we could not seek a modification of custody because it was too soon. He said, “Let the ink dry on the judge’s custody order.” That was the last straw and I fired him.
I got a new lawyer and a new psychologist. I recorded a telephone conversation with Russ’s girlfriend about the abuse of Daniel. Russ’s girlfriend was subpoenaed, and because of the recording, I knew––and Russ knew––that the abuse of Daniel would come out. Even if Russ intimidated her into changing her testimony, I think he knew that the tape was credible.
Faced with a situation he could not win, Russ folded. He agreed to a modification and I regained custody of Daniel. I grabbed at the chance to get custody back, even though I had to agree that Russ could have unsupervised visitation with the children. I knew Russ would never agree to supervised visitation. I did not want, and could not pay for, another long, drawn–out battle in court. Besides, based on what I had seen, I did not want to risk what a judge might do.
As far as I am concerned, Russ agreed to the change of custody to save face. No one in authority ever held him accountable for his abuse. People in authority, like the judge and the psychologists, always supported him and held a good opinion of him. Russ wanted to maintain his good image at all costs. By giving up custody of Daniel without a fight, he could avoid the public humiliation of being outed as an abuser.
He portrayed the custody change to the children as a sacrifice he was making because he loved them so much. “This is what’s best for you,” he said. Once again, he took no responsibility for doing anything wrong in abusing Daniel. He showed no remorse.
Even after I had custody of both kids, Russ continued to engage in repeated violations of my protective order through phone harassment and stalking. Additionally, his son, Chip, was there unsupervised when the kids visited Russ. Apparently, though, Chip did not abuse either child further.
@ @ @ @
C. Attitudes Need to Change More than the Law
Domestic violence law is certainly far better than it has been in the past. We have seen progress in the legislative, [77] judicial, [78] and executive [79] arenas. Positive legislative reform is on–going, though there is a backlash as well, driven primarily by the Fathers’ Rights movement. [80]
Changes in the law are important. With better law, good people (judges, police, etc.) can do more and bad ones are limited in the harm they can cause. Law can also have an educational effect. A judge or police officer who initially resists laws and policies that are appropriate for domestic violence cases may ultimately come to see their value.
Mary’s story shows, however, that the primary problem is not with the law but with the human beings who interpret and administer it. The legal system betrayed Mary, but not because it lacked the power to act differently. The judges, psychologists, and lawyers could have protected Mary and her children. They could have understood woman battering, or made a point of educating themselves about it. They could have let go of their stereotypes about what batterers and their victims “look like” and how they act. They could have reexamined their values, under which abuse of Mom is irrelevant to Dad’s fitness as a parent. The list continues indefinitely.
Mary’s custody judge easily had the power to find that full custody with Mary was in the children’s “best interest” [81] and that Russ’s visitation had to be supervised. [82] The judge could have warned Russ, not Mary, that he had to be on his best behavior or he would lose even supervised visitation. The judge could have ordered Russ to undergo batterers’ counseling as a precondition for even supervised visitation. [83]
My point is simple: this did not have to happen. Without in any way ignoring or bending the law, Mary, the children––and Russ––could have been dealt with appropriately. Mary and her children, especially Daniel, may pay for the system’s sexism, ignorance, and indifference for a lifetime. And, as Mary says, society pays too when the aftermath of abuse spills out, as it often will, beyond the family.
@ @ @ @
F. Any “Solution” Not Based on Battered Women’s Experiences
Is Doomed to Failure
We cannot know what to do about domestic violence unless we listen to survivors’ stories. In them are the keys to solutions. Battered women and formerly battered women are telling us what works and what does not. People with professional training can help, but only if their actions and recommendations are based on what battered women and formerly battered women say. [116]
Women like Mary tell us that mediation, joint custody, and couples counseling can be terrible for battered women, [117] yet certain professionals continue to advocate for these things in domestic violence cases. [118] Their arguments, however, are from the viewpoint of the mediator or the system, not the battered woman and her children. [119] Women’s safety concerns are either not addressed or minimized. [120]
Proponents of mediation in domestic violence cases express a near–magical belief in mediation and mediators. They believe that the mediator can tell when mediation is not appropriate or when it should be stopped [121] (another example of the helper’s ego surfacing). Sadly, the only expertise that seems to count is the mediator’s. Battered women’s expertise does not seem to matter. [122]
Sometimes, it seems that battered women’s voices are getting more and more lost. The field has become professionalized, [123] semi–respectable, [124] and partially funded. [125] There has been a parallel tendency to turn the focus away from the victims and toward the professionals. [126]
I do not want to be misunderstood here. I have absolutely no nostalgia for the “good old days” when shelters did not exist or led threadbare existences, and when a professor who wanted to teach Domestic Violence would have been laughed off campus. I have been doing domestic violence work far too long for such foolishness. I relish the voice, the power, and even the respectability that our movement has achieved. But people who really care about battered women must remain ever vigilant against those whose solutions come from their own professional experience and not from victims’ lives.
@ @ @
As a mother and wife, I absolutely agree that families need rules. Nothing is sadder than a house where “anything goes” and there are no rules; everyone is unhappy, especially the children. [131] Nor do I think that every rule, even if somewhat imposed by one family member over others, is abusive.
But rules are different in a batterer’s house. They are never negotiated; they are always imposed. [132] And rulemaking is a one–way street: the batterer sets rules for other family members, while he does exactly as he pleases. [133] Russ ordered Mary not to watch comedies on television, just as he announced that he was quitting his job. Mary knew that even suggesting alternatives might result in violence. But Russ could be away for days at a time, and Mary was not to question his actions.
The rules in a batterer’s house are not just for his comfort and enjoyment. They are an integral part of his plan to control and isolate his partner. [134] As Mary said, the rule about no comedies on television meant she could not exercise her sense of humor, an important part of her self–image. Batterer’s rules also control matters such as whether and when she can leave the house, and how she can spend money. [135] Many rules reinforce the victim’s isolation, such as rules about not having any of her friends over or going out with other people after work. [136][137] She might hear something that made her feel good while listening to the radio, or she might hear a description of domestic violence and recognize herself and start planning her escape. Looking out at the world from her kitchen window (or having someone else look in and see what was going on) might decrease her isolation. Even “little” rules, like “don’t play the radio when I’m gone” and “keep the curtain in the kitchen down” are part of an overall pattern of isolation.
In the functional family, rules are negotiated and renegotiated. [138] One partner may give in to the other, but both partners engage in some give and take. The rules may not fulfill everyone’s needs, but they do not destroy family members’ self–esteem either. [139] In functional families, people are basically satisfied with the rules. [140]
Second, the batterer’s list of rules is ridiculously long and ever expanding and changing. [141] While his partner and children are struggling to comply with his existing demands, new and often contradictory rules are added. [142] This again is in marked contrast with the non–abusive “dinner at six” dad. We have all known non–abusive families where one member (usually, but not always, the father) must be catered to, but his demands are limited and stable. Further, the demanding but non–abusive family member is capable of being satisfied. “Just feed him on time and he’s a happy man” is not something an abused wife would say.
Finally, there is the punishment imposed for non–compliance with rules. [143] The non–abusive man does not beat or rape his wife or children if dinner is not on the table at six. He may pout for a while, or whine, he may even occasionally yell. His reaction may be unhealthy, but the other family members do not live in terror of what will happen if the rules are not met.
Identification protocols for battered women should include questions about rulemaking. [144] Something like this would be good: “Every household has rules under which it operates. Tell me about the ones in your house. What are the rules? How are they established? What happens when they’re not met?” With a sympathetic ear and a little prodding, a battered woman may quickly identify a long list of onerous and changing rules, imposed by the abuser and ruthlessly enforced by him. [145] If she is still in the relationship, or just getting out, she may describe the rules matter–of–factly, and may consider them normal. [146] One advantage of asking about the rules is that she may talk about them much more readily and with less shame than about the violence she has experienced. [147]
H. How Physical and Non–Physical Abuse Work Together:
Why Do We See It as Torture When [XxxxxXxxx] Generals Do It,
But Not When It’s the Guy Next Door?
People are still very ignorant about domestic violence and how it works. If you talk to people and read news reports, the emphasis is always on physical violence. [148] Mary encountered this ignorance when the psychologists, judges, and lawyers minimized her danger because the last severe beating occurred a year and a half before Mary left Russ for good.
~ ~ ~ ~
In other settings, we are well aware of how torturers combine physical and mental abuse to get and keep power over their victims. [154] Appendix B is one of my favorite charts, adapted from Ann Jones’s book Next Time, She’ll Be Dead. [155] In the left–hand column are non–physical torture methods that Amnesty International has recognized and cata
logued. [156] Totalitarian regimes often use these techniques against political prisoners. [157] In the right–hand column are battered women’s descriptions of how their batterers used these same techniques to control them. [158] I have added some examples from Mary’s story to what appears in Jones’s book.
Those who work with battered women must understand the interplay of physical and non–physical abuse. When seen in context, a “slap” is not just a “slap”; it is a warning that the victim must comply with the batterer’s demands “or else.” Repeated phone calls to her at work are not just a sign of a little insecurity. They are part of an overall scheme of isolation and control. Busting up the furniture at home, or throwing the cat against the wall are not unfortunate temper tantrums; they say, “you could be next.” [159]
We should recognize domestic violence as the human rights violation it is. [160] We should draw analogies between domestic violence and torture, [161] to kidnappers and hostages. [162]
READER QUIZ: WHAT YEAR WAS THAT STORY ?
(hover cursor above to find the copyright and which attorney related the story).
Hover over THIS and I’ll tell you when this woman married & got her RO.
It could’ve been a decade later, and wouldn’t have read much different. I found this story after, with curiosity, searching on the man who wrote the article below. I hope readers may go back (click on this link, the “READER QUIZ” link) and actually read Mary’s Story, which was an actual case (name changed), and too damn typical. I doubt a person who has experienced abuse would respond the same as one who hasn’t.
NOW, for comic relief, of the monotous drone of fatherlessness being the nation’s crisis (and we have JUST the solution to fix it . . . . ).
Fall of marriage seen linked to decline in domestic murders Drop in homicides called ‘ironic benefit’ of change
The decline of marriage and the breakdown of stable relationships have produced a paradoxical benefit: Domestic murders have declined, with the most dramatic reductions among African- Americans, a University of Missouri criminologist reported yesterday.
“We’re living at a time of dramatic changes in marriage, intimate relationships and family structure,” said Richard Rosenfeld, speaking in Baltimore at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Those changes have had an ironic benefit in reducing the number of intimate-partner homicides.”
Dr. Rosenfeld’s findings are the flip side of the much-reported increase in young men killing young men, which he said may be attributed in part to similar factors — family instability and lack of supervision by harried single parents
READER QUIZ — WHAT YEAR WAS THIS ARTICLE (ABOVE)?
(author date & cite show when cursor hovers over link)
OK, now that you know when Dr. Rosenfled (a criminologist, not a PSYchologist) found out that the decline in marriage rates among African Americans meant reduced DV homicides among African Americans (although young men were killing each other more, they weren’t apparently killing so many wives or “intimate partners.” )
Let’s say what the head-honcho elected mostly white men were saying about the same year:
I searched the 104th Congress (1995-1996) for the word “fatherless.”
As we know, fatherlessness has been for so long blamed on the nation’s troubles that you can barely walk somewhere in a government agency, or any social service community agency (after you come back from either a Catholic church, where the (celibate?) priests are called “Father” in direct disobedience to Jesus’s command in the gospels, “call no man Father.” Or, an evangelical Protestant, not quite mainline (or, megachurch) where, after the ranks were being drained to women, they are adding testosterone to the doctrine, and teaching men to be more sensitive (in men’s groups, of course).
If you want to go without the straight-up religious variety, there’s always “The Mankind Project” and one can get a seminar of the Robert Bly type. There are fatherhood practitioners everywhere one looks, practically.
All I really wanted was the conversation where a legislator expresses shock and dismay that African American boys and girls are waking up on homes without their fathers. (NOTE: The “Mary” story above happened in the late 1980s, and HER 3 kids were waking up with their father in the home. In fact, her little girl Elizabeth, at age 3, had gotten an early introduction to sex when her stepbrother came there for the summer and molested her, after which her mother had another job of making sure they weren’t left alone together. (That couple were white and suburban, so maybe they didn’t count in this topic).
I got a little more than I expected in this 104th Congressional record:
Beginning
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK OPPORTUNITY RECONCILIATION ACT OF 1996–CONFERENCE REPORT
I met a man who was an administrator of one of the hospitals in my community in the 15th District of Florida, and this gentleman told me that, before he had moved to Florida, he had lived in Oklahoma, and he had taken part in a program where he would go into inner city housing projects and read to young children in those projects. This program started because it has been shown in research studies that, if you read to a child, you can improve their reading score. Actually there are some studies that show that, if you read to a child, you may actually be able to raise their IQ slightly, {{Noble cause. Some Oklahoman going to raise inner city kids’ IQs}} and he told me something that I will never forget.
So this anecdotal evidence of an unnamed Florida Hospital Administrator, about (how many years previous?) that administrator going into the projects (hence, he wasn’t from them) was not 2nd-hand but 3rd-hand hearsay — if the event ever indeed happened. The impassioned delivery is to state how Welfare is Cruel — listen up how this is done:
He was going into those projects and reading to those kids, and those children were, by and large, children of single parents on welfare, and he would ask, many of them 5, 6 and 7-year-old children, `What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And, yes, some of them would say I want to be a fireman or a nurse, but some of them would say:
`I don’t want to work. I want to collect a check.’
Not all of them wanted to be firemen or nurses (separate by gender; I don’t know how many female fire”men” there are these days, but we know there are lots of male nurses… And probably were in 1996, too..)
Mr. Speaker, a program that does that to millions of children is not a program of compassion and caring to children. It is a program that is cruel and mean spirited to children.
Here’s the process — a man in Florida heard a man in Florida talk about his experience trying to improve the iQ of little kids in the projects (did he talk to their Mamas?) in Oklahoma, and concludes that (although even in the story some WANTED a profession, others wanted a check) FEEDING such children was mean-spirited and cruel…
Today a young male being born to a mother, a single mother on welfare in the United States, has a greater likelihood of ending up on drugs or in the penitentiary than graduating from high school.
I showed in “Luzerne County” that you don’t have to be poor or (presumable here) black to be a crook. There’s a difference between being a crook and actually being jailed for it. It should be common knowledge now, and I bet then (1996) that America, being the largest jailor (per capita) has those jails disproportionately filled with black males. Some of them got their assaulting their mother’s attacker, too. He’s taking two statistics (if that) and creating a CASUAL connection rather than a CAUSAL one. Of course, how many poor black males — or females of any social status or color — were there in Congress in 1996 to comment on his reasoning process?
And the young females, (single mothers have both boys and girls, right?) — are THEY ending up on drugs or in jail?
The problem that we have with illegitimacy in our Nation today is a problem that has been created by the program that we are trying to change, and you cannot fix this problem by tinkering around the edges. The illegitimacy rate in this country has gone up from 5 percent to almost 25 percent in the white community. In the black community it has gone from less than 25 percent to, in some areas, as high as 70 percent.
If you look at what correlates best, what correlates in communities with problems like teenage pregnancy, drug use, illiteracy, juvenile crime, the thing that correlates best in those problems in those communities, Mr. Speaker, is the amount of illegitimacy, the amount of fatherlessness in those communities. A program that perpetuates and cultivates things like this is a cruel and mean-spirited program, and that program needs to be changed, and our bill makes a serious attempt at doing that.
We are not talking about tinkering around the edges. We are talking about promoting family unity, discouraging teen-age pregnancy and illegitimacy.
The fact that this program perpetuates it, Mr. Speaker, was driven home to me when I was a medical student working in an inner-city obstetrics clinic, and I had a 15-year-old girl come in to see me who was pregnant, and I had never seen this before, and I was so upset. I was grieved to see this. I looked at her and said her life is ruined, she cannot go to college, and I said to her, `How did this happen, why did this happen,’ and she looked up to me and told me that she did it deliberately because she wanted to get out from under her mother in the project, and she wanted her own place and her own welfare check.
Again, on the outside looking in, and one anecdote.
This program needs to stop. The people have asked for it; we are trying to deliver.
WHICH people? I mean, these are elected representatives, are they really speaking for their constituents?
Mr. Speaker, I encourage the Members of the minority to stop their partisan rhetoric and join with us in reforming welfare and creating a program for the poor and the needy that strengthens family, does not undermine them, that strengthens the bonds of marriage, because it is strong families that make strong communities that makes strong nations, and our Nation cannot survive with a perpetuation of a program like this.
Is it the lack of marriage, or the lack of fathers that counts? Because I tell you one thing that makes lack of fathers — WARS. Another thing that previously, broke up families in a callous manner is called slavery.
Who created ghettoes? Who created the two-tier school system, good for some lousy for others (a factor to this date). Who directed one populace into “jobs” and the others (elite ones) into how to run businesses and understand investments, political connections, foundations, and skills that would go along with that goal?
So if you want to know how much we (we WHO???) have invested in the old welfare program over the past 30 years, it is roughly the equivalent of the value of all buildings, all plants and equipment, and all of the tools of all the workers in the United States of America. No society in history has ever invested more money trying to help needy people than the United States of America has invested.
Yet, what has been the result of all of those good intentions? What has been the result of that investment? The result of that investment, 30 years later, is that we have as many poor people today as we had 30 years ago. They are poorer today, they are more dependent on the Government today, and by any definition of quality of life, fulfillment, or happiness, people are worse off today than they were when we started the current welfare system.
When we started the War on Poverty {{and another war in Southeast Asia to follow up on the Korean war I guess}} in the mid-1960s, two-parent families were the norm in poor families in America. Today, two-parent families are the exception. Since 1965, the illegitimacy rate has tripled.
I know that we have colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are going to lament the passage of this new welfare reform bill. But I do not see how anybody with a straight face, or a clear conscience, can defend the status quo in welfare. Our current welfare program has failed. It has driven fathers out of the household. It has made mothers dependent. It has taken away people’s dignity. It has bred child abuse and neglect, and filled the streets of our cities with crime. And we are here today to change it.
Grammar: Is this guy going to “own” the welfare program, or objectify it? First it was guilt trip, “we have created” and net thing it’s got an independent life, like a disease, perpetuating itself of its own accord, where it can be separated from the rhetorical bosom of the speaker, and be viewed running around tearing up the place. As an “it” it can now have stones thrown at IT first. And after the vivid picture of 5, 6 , 7 year olds wanting to collect a welfare check (“millions of them”) (Seriously, that’s the subliminal message — guilt trip first, it’s ours” and then relieve the guilt by blaming the same thing “we” created, and QUICK, call to action.….) Some action is needed to take away
Let me outline what our program does. I think if each of us looks back to a period when our ancestors first came to America, or back to a time when those who have gone before us found themselves poor, we are going to find that there are two things that get individuals and nations out of poverty. Those two things are work and family. I think it is instructive to note that those are the two things that we have never applied to the current welfare program of the United States of America.
This man seems totally unconscious of the fact that SOME ancestors came to America in the bottom of a slave ship; that a lot of wealth, including likely some of the wealth that helped put people in Congress, came from came from businesses that included plantation labor, sweat shops, and some very, very hard work. When he says “us” as to doling out benefits, he also seems to have forgotten that those taxes came from employees’ wages, courtesy a few reforms dating back to 1939. He seems to have forgotten everything about “Jim Crow” and era of attempting to turn back the clock on some serious industriousness by freed slaves.
The bill before us asks people to work. It says that able-bodied men and women will be required to work in order to receive benefits. It sets a time limit so that people cannot make welfare a way of life. It seeks to change the incentives within the welfare system. And I believe the time has come to change those incentives within the welfare system.
I admit I’m maybe sensitive to this because I know HOW HARD I worked over the years, and none harder than while in a battering relationship that could’ve been a variety of the one above (but a decade later). This relationship, within marriage shouldn’t be happening any more in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, or 2000s, but it is.
Family Court Systems Purposefully Mask Abuse and Abusers
(SEPARATE TOPIC, above)) just saving the link).
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“PC278.5” Arresting Moms, at least, for Felony Child-Stealing…
http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/unreport.htm
Parental Child Abduction
is Child Abuseby Nancy Faulkner, Ph.D
Presented to the
United Nations Convention on Child Rights
in Special Session, June 9, 1999,
on behalf of P.A.R.E.N.T.
and victims of parental child abduction.© Nancy Faulkner 1999-2006
Interesting: The NCJRS 
Seems to sort “child-stealing” under two main headings:
| Search results for: child-stealing | ||||||||||||||||||
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This would be coherent with the recent Click-Hill case, as the girl disappeared after allegations of child abuse. The other reason for child-stealing (see “Garrido,” and others) might be for personal sexual abuse by strangers, or prostituting kids.
Two reasons I can think of might be to protect a child, or to punish the other parent. Authorities ought to get which is which straight… (More on the NCJRS info towards end of this post)
pc 278.5 IS (California) Penal Code 278.5.
I have come to believe this law was written for men, not women, to get their kids back. I would like to hear of any California woman whose children of around that age were actually returned to her under this code.
We already know of women in this and other states who have been incarcerated for much lesser custodial interference (see Oconto, WI blog, and “Lorraine.” Or, Joyce Murphy.
http://custodyscam.blogspot.com/2009/06/joyce-murphy-accused-of-kidnapping-her.html
SO WHEN IS THIS LAW TAKEN SERIOUSLY, AND WHEN NOT?
It reads as follows:
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/278.5.html
(a) Every person who takes, entices away, keeps, withholds,
or conceals a child and maliciously deprives a lawful custodian of a
right to custody, or a person of a right to visitation, shall be
punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, a
fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both that fine
and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16
months, or two or three years, a fine not exceeding ten thousand
dollars ($10,000), or both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) Nothing contained in this section limits the court’s contempt
power.
(c) A custody order obtained after the taking, enticing away,
keeping, withholding, or concealing of a child does not constitute a
defense to a crime charged under this section.
Do you see the word “SHALL” in there?
Here’s 287.7, which indicates circumstances — unbelievably, it seems – -in which a parent or someone COULD take, entice, or conceal a child. It is to handle possible abuse or imminent harm to the child. (Child, FYI, is defined as under 18 in this law).
(a) Section 278.5 does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who, with a good faith and reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals that child.
(b) Section 278.5 does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who has been a victim of domestic violence who, with a good faith and reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals that child.
“Emotional harm” includes having a parent who has committed domestic violence against the parent who is taking, enticing away, keeping, withholding, or concealing the child.
(c) The person who takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals a child shall do all of the following:
(1) Within a reasonable time from the taking, enticing away, keeping, withholding, or concealing, make a report to the office of the district attorney of the county where the child resided before the action.
In other words, such a person shall, as an adult, give an account to the authorities of his or her reasons for the devastating action of removing a child from a parent.
NOW HERE WE ARE IN THE CLICK-HILL CASE, and a mother disappears with a daughter (mid-1990s, right when VAWA and NFI had gotten started), having accused the father of child molestation, after which he got (apparently) unsupervised time with the girl, again, then disappears.
Here’s an article by Robert Salonga:
Resurfacing of Walnut Creek girl highlights strains of parental abductions
By Robert Salonga
Contra Costa TimesPosted: 03/05/2010 04:45:10 PM PSTUpdated: 03/05/2010 05:35:35 PM PSTWALNUT CREEK — The arrest this week of a woman who took off with her 8-year-old daughter in 1995 during a child custody dispute is being lauded by police and missing child experts as an exceptional event.
In some ways, it wasn’t an exception at all.
Parental and family abductions account for nearly 97 percent of child abduction reports in the state. In Contra Costa County, all 29 abductions reported in 2008 involved family, and just one of the 64 reported in Alameda County that year was committed by a nonrelative.
Click said Friday that he divorced Wendy Hill in the early 1990s, and their relationship became estranged after he was granted primary custody of their daughter. When he went to pick her up from his ex-wife’s Redlands home in the summer of 1995, they had moved out. He never saw Jessica again, he said.
This sounds to me like a custody-switch; another version (below) says he got unsupervised visitation… There were allegations of child molestation, which is every bit as much a crime as child-stealing, but is often not handled as such in family law system.
Here’s another one…
Man waits to reunite with daughter
found 14 years after being abducted
as a 7-year-old by her mother
March 5, 2010 | 4:26 pmA woman who vanished 14 years ago with her 7-year-old daughter was arrested Tuesday in Monrovia and her daughter was located unharmed, authorities said Friday.
Wendy Hill, 52, was spotted at a local Claim Jumper restaurant and arrested on suspicion of abducting her own daughter.
Jessica Click-Hill, now 22, was contacted by authorities after the arrest. She is believed to be living out of state.
“I’m just so excited that Jessica is found and well and that, physically, she’s fine,” said the girl’s father, Dean Click. “She’s got family who haven’t gotten to be with her, to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving together, so we’re looking forward to reconnecting with each other.”
Click said that since his daughter is an adult, authorities will not release her contact information. “At this point, she will have to come to me,” he said.
The father said he and his ex-wife were in a custody dispute when Hill cleaned out her Redlands apartment in the fall of 1995 and left with the girl.
Click said he lived in Walnut Creek in Northern California at the time and for years had not been able to visit his daughter without a mediator present. [[he probably means supervised visitation. Mediation is something different.]] He said at the time he’d been accused of molesting his daughter, a claim he denied.
He said he ultimately was exonerated and that his rights were restored for full, unsupervised visits. On his first visit, he said he celebrated by bringing his parents along and taking Jessica out to lunch.
On his second visit, he said he arrived at the apartment complex and found that his ex-wife and daughter had left.
Authorities said Hill changed her name to Gail Jackson and moved from state to state. She was sighted outside Tampa, Fla., and at one point lived in Boston, authorities said.
A warrant was issued for her arrest in 1996 out of Contra Costa County, and the FBI issued its own warrant a year later.
Click said he kept in touch with authorities, but leads were few and far between. Then a tip came in several months ago from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the mother’s alias and her location, said Sgt. Tom Cashion of the Walnut Creek Police Department .
Hill flew to Los Angeles, apparently for a business meeting, and was picked up Tuesday at the Monrovia restaurant, Cashion said.
She has since been taken to Northern California, where she was being held on $250,000 bail.
Click said he was asked by prosecutors if he wanted to press charges.
“I said ‘yes’ because she’s been a thief and she’s taken away those years that I did not get to spend with my daughter,” Click said.
— Amina Khan
Here’s another version, from a blog apparently local to the area she was stolen from. March 4, 2010: This isn’t quite current — the mother is now out on bail.
WALNUT CREEK GIRL MISSING SINCE 1995 FOUND HEAR L.A.: MOM ARRESTED FOR ABDUCTION.
![[found.jpg]](https://familycourtmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/4e352-found.jpg?w=700)
8-year-old Walnut Creek resident Jessica Click-Hill was allegedly abducted by her mom in 1995, and today, the Walnut Creek Police announced they found the girl, who’s now 22-years-old, and arrested her mom for parental abduction.The following is from the Walnut Creek Police….
Walnut Creek Police Detectives took Wendy D. Hill into custody for the parental abduction of her eight year old daughter Jessica Click-Hill in Los Angeles.
This case started in 1995 when Jessica’s father Dean Click reported to Walnut Creek Police that he believed his wife had abducted their child, Jessica. Detectives worked the case and in 1996, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against Wendy Hill and an arrest warrant was issued for her PC 278.5.
In 1997, the FBI issued an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution warrant (UFAP warrant). Recently, Walnut Creek Police and the FBI were alerted by NCMEC regarding a possible location for Wendy Hill and Jessica.
WCPD and the FBI followed up on the information and started their search. On March 2, the FBI located Wendy Hill in Monrovia (Los Angeles County) and arrested her on their UFAP warrant.
Walnut Creek Detectives were immediately sent to Los Angeles where they took custody of Wendy Hill.
The FBI has also located and made contact with Jessica.
Early this morning, detectives booked Wendy Hill into the Martinez Detention Facility in Martinez and she is being held on $250,000 bail.
(THIS WOMAN HAS SINCE BEEN RELEASED)..
The “California Family Institute” founder boasts (on the site) how he was one of the first to get a substantial reward under this law… Here’s the resume…(portions of it):
MICHAEL KELLY, ESQ. RESUME:Martindale Hubbell A.V. (VERACITY, Highest Possible Lawyer Rating by Judges and Peers, Preeminent National Lawyer Directory Listing):
California Divorce Attorney, Best interest of Child Advocate, Accomplished Victorious Lawyer:
I. Professional Leadership (42 Years Family Law Experience):
- Chairman of American Bar Custody Committee 2003
- Chairman of CA State Bar Custody & Visitation Comm., two terms
- Chairman of CA Trial Lawyers – Family Law Section Mem. Comm.
- Chairman of American Bar Association – Family Law, Law Practice Economics Committee
- Chairman of American Bar Interstate Custody Task Force Committee; UCCJEA (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act)
- Chairman of American Bar Association – Family Law, Practical Use of Computers Committee
- Chairman of California Family Law Institute
- Chairman of California Custody Commission
- Chairman of Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce – Legal Committee
- Chairman of Santa Monica Bar Association – Family Law Committee, Three Terms
- Judge Pro Tem in Los Angeles County Superior Family Law Courts 20-years
- Family Law Mediator in Santa Monica, Torrance & LA Central District Superior Courts, 24-years
- Executive Member of the American Bar Association – Continuing Education Committee
- Executive Member of the American Bar Association – Economics of Practice Committee
- Secretary of California State Bar – Custody & Visitation Committee, Two Terms
- Produced and Moderated a Course on Negotiations – 1988 Joint Meeting of California State Bar, Child Custody, Support and Division of Property Committees
II. Legal Achievements:
- First CA attorney to try a Grandparents’ rights suit (January 1970) (Petrikin)
- First CA attorney appointed by children to represent them as individuals (June 1984) (Ryan)
- First CA attorney to file suit against an abducting parent under Penal Code 278.5, for $2.5 Million (1985)
- Largest child abduction award litigated in the United States, $12.4 Million (July 1993) (Wang)
- Rewrote and expanded CA Civil Code 4606, “Children’s right to an attorney” (1985), expanding childrens rights to an attorney (Ryan)
III. Teacher:USC Law School, Advanced Family Law & Divorce Litigation classes. All courses have been certified and accredited by the California State Bar Family Law Specialization Committee for attorney certification as family law specialist since 1986 to present.
While I’m at it, let me point out this site was SPECIFICALLY called a site addressed to MEN on an information sheet at a law library near a courthouse in Northern California. Look at the connections this person has, and the functions he has worked, in the family law venue. It is unbelievably interwoven…
This is the same site, where, while women are being told that conflict is bad, and if they have “conflict” with their ex, their heads need to be examined (let us appoint someone official, that we have trained), while apart from this, sites friendly to fathers have pages like this one:
.
Evil unanswered, is evil supported. You cannot allow evil to exist, and you cannot fight it with evil. Evil resisted by evil means, contaminates the resistor. The end that justifies the means is an imperfect and flawed concept. No end justifies evil, hurtful, injurious and mean behavior to others or against innocence.
The very concept of mediation and supervised visitation, parenting plans, etc., in the family venue is a brainchild of increasing noncustodial parent visitation time, when due process, fact-gathering, and evidence wouldn’t. The Family Law venue IS a violation of due process, and it IS a venue where the end (“required outcome– more noncustodial parent time [[noncustodial parent being, “father,” as far as the intent of such programs]] justifies the means, and as such, might be characterized as “evil.” IF the concept is justice, and due process.
Evil flourishes by creating distraction, misdirection, trust, ease, inattention, enjoyment, false pride, etc. If one were asked, “What do you do?”, the answer could ask “I wage war against evil, in all of its myriad forms and colorations, at all times, places and at all costs.”
You cannot face evil on impulse; it thrives on such action. You cannot defeat evil with anger . . . anger makes evil burn brighter. You can only cut down evil with cold, fierce force driven by the vision of right, honor, truth, and godliness. Evil is so opposed to these forces that anything else simply exacerbates the evil.
Evil is heartless by necessity. Both it and the person possessed by it see circumstances and events with the view of a malignant narcissist. All things that do not agree with their view of the world are immediately labeled “Deadly Opponents” in an opposition to the self-appointed right of the evil person to their sole view of what is right and wrong, what is proper behavior and what is not, what should and should not be said, or done . . . how things should or should not be done.
Question:
SO when is a crime not a crime? Or a law against felony child-stealing not a felony or not applicable?
Answer:
When someone in authority says it’s not. And that’s up to whoever decides to prosecute, or, alternately, decides NOT to prosecute. This is NOT up to the parent, but to the reporting officers, and after that, the D.A.
When it is bounced to family law, and ends up as a check mark on a mediator’s report form.
I just searched the well-known “NCJRS” on “Child-stealing” and got these results. notice — they aren’t exactly “current,” for the most part (note years).
| Results in Publications (Abstracts Only) | ||
| Parental Child–Stealing | ||
| NCJ 078760, M W Agopian, 1981, (157 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Parental Child Stealing – California’s Legislative Response | ||
| NCJ 074911, M W Agopian, Canadian Criminology Forum, 3, 1, 1980, 37-43, (7 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Epidemic of Child–Stealing – What Can Be Done? | ||
| NCJ 080631, B W Most, Current, 194, 1977, 40-44, (5 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Problems in the Prosecution of Parental Child Stealing Offenses (From Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1979, S 105 – Addendum, P 76-87, 1980 – See NCJ-77752) | ||
| NCJ 077753, M W Agopian, 1980, (12 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Characteristics of Parental Child Stealing (From Crime and the Family, P 111-120, 1985, by Alan J Lincoln and Murray A Straus – See NCJ-98873) | ||
| NCJ 098879, M W Agopian; G L Anderson, 1985, (10 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| CHILD STEALING – A TYPOLOGY OF FEMALE OFFENDERS | ||
| NCJ 036248, P T D’ORBAN, BRITISH JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY, 16, 3, 1976, 275-281, (7 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Child Stealing by Cesarean Section: A Psychiatric Case Report and Review of the Child Stealing Literature | ||
| NCJ 140929, S H Yutzy; J K Wolfson; P J Resnick, Journal of Forensic Sciences, 38, 1, 1993, 192-196, (5 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Parental Child Stealing – Participants and the Victimization Process | ||
| NCJ 085267, M W Agopian, Victimology, 5, 2-4, 1982, 263-273, (11 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
Here are Miscellaneous Abstracts and characterizations from these ties:
FROM “typology of Female Offenders.” Kinda reminds you of Chesler “Women & Madness…”
| Annotation: | CASE STUDIES ARE PRESENTED AND DISCUSSED FOR FOURTEEN ENGLISH CHILD–STEALING OFFENDERS – MOST OF WHOM ARE EITHER PSYCHOTIC, SUB-NORMALLY INTELLIGENT, OR SUFFERING FROM PERSONALITY DISORDERS. |
| Abstract: | ‘CHILD–STEALING‘ IS DEFINED UNDER ENGLISH LAW AS THE UNLAWFUL TAKING AWAY OR ENTICING OF A CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF 14 YEARS WITH INTENT TO DEPRIVE THE PARENT OR GUARDIAN OR ANY OTHER PERSON HAVING THE LAWFUL CARE OF THE CHILD, OR WITH INTENT TO STEAL ANY ARTICLE FROM THE CHILD. |
| Index Term(s): | Case studies; Child abuse; Crimes against children; England; Female offenders; Kidnapping; Mentally ill offenders |
(I beg your pardon, but due to internet access time, I’m simply copying and pasting. Better option — check the links yourself).
Language: English Annotation: Analysis of parental child–stealing cases in Los Angeles reveals that this crime occurs after a divorce action and following a period of compliance with court-ordered visitation privileges. Abstract: Study data came from cases screened for prosecution by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office between July 1977 and June 1978, the first year in which California law made this activity illegal. A total of 91 cases were examined. The crime generally involved young Caucasians, with fathers generally abducting children from mothers awarded custody. The crimes occurred equally throughout the seasons of the year, but took place more often on weekend days than during the week. The parents communicated after the child theft in almost half the cases. The communication usually involved announcing the offender’s intention to keep the child, trying to influence the severed relationship, or justifying the crime. Surprise abductions and use of force were rare. Although just over half the abductions took place within 18 months of the divorce, 37 percent occurred 2 or more years after the divorce. The child stealing reflected the offender’s desire to maintain a full-time relationship with the child and to help reestablish the marital relationship. Additional California and national data suggest that about 1 child theft occurs annually for every 22 divorces. Further research should focus on other jurisdictions and other aspects of child stealing. One note, data tables, and 22 references are supplied. Index Term(s): California; Child snatching; Crimes against children; Family offenses
IN OTHER WORDS, the young Caucasian fathers didn’t want their women to leave them, so to keep the mother attached, they stole the kids. Nice… It’s not necessarily that they loved the child, or were concerned about his or her welfare.
1980: Parental Child Stealing – California’s Legislative Response
. . . Prior to July 1, 1977, California law had provided that the father and mother of a legitimate unmarried minor child were equally entitled to custody, services, and earnings.
What is a “legitimate” unmarried minor child? One whose parents were married?
Because parents had equal rights, neither parent was in violation of the law, civil or criminal, by taking and concealing the child in the absence of a court order giving custody to a particular parent. On July 1, 1977 the California legislature transferred child stealing from the civil to the criminal jurisdication and toughened sanctions and legal procedures dealing with child stealing. This California legislation is a significant effort toward clarifying numerous legal discrepancies and oversights wich have prompted parents to employ child stealing as an extra-legal method of securing their children.
I find it interesting that child-stealing went from CIVIL to CRIMINAL.
Now, depending on the context, and the prosecutors, it appears to me to be going straight back to CIVIL where protective parents (typically but not always mothers) are involved…. This was my case. It was treated like a minor blip on the radar by a “mediator.” I put the word in quotes, because what happened to us wasn’t “mediation” in any sense of the word, but a bypass of the judicial process, which otherwise would have shown missing kids!
When I search adding the word “parental kidnapping,” results differ:
Parental Abduction: A Review of the Literature NCJ 190074, Janet Chiancone, 2000, OJJDP, (13 pages). Overall, the research on parental abductions indicates that this type of crime can be traumatic for both children and left-behind parents and that the longer the separation continues the more damaging the experience becomes.
THAT would be an understatement!
(some reformatting added 2017Aug ,when I approved a comment that had mistakenly been overlooked. FYI, comments on this blog are few and far between, despite the number of views or followers showing on the front sidebar. I was working hard on current posts (this one now about 7 years old), which takes a lot of focus, and am less active on my own email. I’ll try and remember to check it more recently for submitted comments from now on… //LGH.).
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
“Strong Field Project” caters to DV industry’s networks, enabled by ?? “Three Cities that Rule the World”
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This post to be read alongside a page added to the other blog, which explains the “Strong Field Project” reference.
*What does doing THAT have to do with ending domestic violence, pray tell?
That article was posted at http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=106799.0 by user May 21, 2009.
We think in terms of within our state (or perhaps as far as the federal level) when seeking justice from the bottom up. However, the top down doesn’t think that way at all — and from what I can see these days, it doesn’t think in terms of the US Constitution either. Consider nonprofit associations that help run our justice system, including particularly the one I blog on….
International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution > Home
http://www.cpradr.org/ The CPR Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank that promotes innovation in commercial dispute prevention and resolution. By harnessing the collective …
this nonprofit (founded 1979) is also listed on the New York State
. . .
The “Strong Field Project” is just another sapling off the DV as industry Tree, and not the main point here (see first link, above). My point is, were it not for centralized wealth — and alongside that wealth, centralized decision-making (taxation without representation) these things would not exist. And so long as our medium of exchange is “fiat money” owned by private bankers, who lend to the U.S. Treasury at interest dumped upon the entire US Population, while talks about “stimulating the economy” “balancing the budget” etc. continue to roil the electorate — they rule that world, and it’s true — they do.
Maybe Jesus was right, in the wilderness -it takes one to know one and maybe whoever wrote the gospels of Matthew and Luke, describing his temptation, were absolutely correct (Mark, probably earlier than either, skims over the time in the wilderness). As it goes in Matthew 4 (KJV), three temptations, which I’ll summarize as: Do Magic Tricks (Stones into bread) to satisfy his empty stomach; Suicide (jump off the temple to test God’s safety net), and finally, Sellout (bow down, and be receive the kingdoms (plural) of the world, with their glory).
Luke 4 has it in a different order (suicide last, after getting Jesus’ worship fails), and adds detail on how the devil got the power over the entire world:
“Power and Glory are mine,” boasts the devil. “I have the kingdoms of this world.” Well, were kingdoms around when this was written? “And I say who gets them, and who does not get them; I am the boss.”
It seems to hold true today, doesn’t it? Only different terminology is used. For example, the word “GRANT.” A grant is a gift, but with the gift goes a little piece of the recipient’s independence in the form of strings attached — does it serve a particular agenda set by the grantOR? Absolutely! This is basically the buying and selling of kingdoms, power, and etc. Whatever happens within them, that’s the umbrella over them.
Characterizing this as coming from “the devil” (invisible spiritual influence), i.e. bad — well, is this type of influence bad, and is it often exercised in hidden (invisible) ways? I’d say, yes…..
Looking at these “kingdoms of the world” (as opposed to looking at, for example, “Nature” and things that grow, against the zoology, biology, anatomy, astromony,etc. that show more and more amazing details) I have to agree, that the greater the power, the greater the damage. And that the lifeblood/energy is being sucked out of the some sectors of the world, along with money, and being centralized into who says who lives and dies; and who says who gets to keep their earnings and who doesn’t, however paltry they may be – and for what social good? For doing good?
No, not really — only good within limits of “I get to control what’s done with the world,” the song of the tax-exempt foundation run (or funded) by some great philanthropists, whose names are usally put on it too (good for PR), and in accompaniment with the corporations (businesses) that helped make that wealth. The tax-exempt foundation, by being tax-exempt, serves as a drainage ditch to reduce the taxes that would otherwise be paid on the FOR-profit.
Why else do we think so many of them are running around all over (look at the civic works, PBS shows, “Models for Change” programs calculating how to mobilize swift transformation of chosen areas of reform, such as “Juvenile Justice” or other areas. Go review MDRC again (I’ve blogged it) for an example of how inbred US Gov’t and Corporate wealth/tax-exempt foundations really are. Even AFCC is getting some help these days.
RATHER THAN WORK TO ELIMINATE THE VERY TAXATION SYSTEM WHICH PRODUCE THIS LEVEL OF WEALTH TO START WITH (ALONG WITH THE WISDOM TO KNOW HOW TO UTILIZE THAT LEVERAGE), INSTEAD, THE OWNERS OF THIS WEALTH FLY AROUND AND COLLABORATE ON A BETTER JUSTICE SYSTEM THAN THEIR LOWER COUNTERPARTS – WHO HAPPEN TO BE IN POSITIONS LIKE GOVERNORS, OF STATES, JUDGESHIPS, ATTORNEY GENERALS, ETC. — THE TRULY ALTRUISTIC BENEFICIAL COLLABORATION WOULD BE TO UNDO THIS INCOME TAX, SWITCH OFF THE “FIAT CURRENCY” AND DEFANG THE FEDERAL RESERVE. BUT HOW LIKELY IS THAT TO HAPPEN?
We’ve been hooked on it for 100 years next year (1913 – 2013) think about it. What an addiction.
The greatest goods would be protecting unalienable rights is LIFE, and LIBERTY and PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, and having enough self-respect and self-restraint to allow others to do the same — how many golden yachts does one really need? You can’t take it with you, even if you have a golden voice (like Whitney Houston, recently: global success, gone age 48, leaving one motherless child. Well, young adult. A wealthy one for sure, but one absent her mother).
So, here’s the Biblical worldview, at least in the book of Revelation. Followers are encouraged to keep it in mind that this kingdom is temporal and is going to be judged (by fire) — so choose your allegiances well. Without my interpreting whether that’s smart or not to endorse, here’s the description of that buying and selling of kingdoms, Revelations 18. As before, spiritual agents (angels, this time) are involved and judgment is swift, expressing indignation and vindication:
The kingdom that rules the world is characterized as “Babylon,” which was a kingdom, earlier. And, naturally, as a woman:
That is indeed what the traffic is in. It pretty much describes most areas of commerce, including transport of goods:
So many enterprises were hooked into the sales that took place in “the city;” but (she) was hell on the apostles and prophets, who were typically exiled, or killed in various gruesome ways, etc. ….there message wasn’t good for business. (Quite a contrast from some of today’s “apostles and prophets” –see recent post on the bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral (Garden Grove, CA) and its founding family’s squabbles with the board, i.e., Robert Schuller et al. I blogged it over at thefamilycourtmoneymachine.blogspot.com
It takes a caste of slaves to produce certain levels of wealth, and even the best of major constructions (The Hoover Dam, the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Station in NY) have been associated with human deaths of workers. What about the pyramids? What about the former practice of burying concubines and wives with the death of a ruler?
The lines have to be drawn and crowds have to be kept within their kind, and within their places. “The great men of the earth” are actually merchants, and there’s no question — is there? — that with slavery and slavehood comes untimely death, too often. So, look around — where are the deaths happening, where is the blood flowing, and then track the trail of money. Religion WILL be associated, and it’s not too hard to locate –except perhaps at the very top levels.
Whoever gave what to whom, and how (Adam, Eve, Israel in the Promised Land, whoever ….) there is no question that there is desire still circulating to rule the world, and that there are layers of collaborators — and the closer to the grants, and wealth (to fly, conference, buy and sell real estate under nonprofit umbrella, even “front groups” to launder the money at times) — the closer to the power, and the deafer the ears become to the cries of those they took the power to (allegedly) help, save, or whatever.
Anyone who’s lived with a certain level of abuse (and knew, by contrast, freedom) knows about this. Many times, supposedly there is some purpose to all the tyranny — but there never is. It’s just enforced because they can get away with doing this, and get off on it. Anything else is pretty much a lie.
WELL, let’s get down to the main show here:
I have been talking, briefly, about the analogy of “The Matrix’ (picked up from someone else who wrote about this) as an artificially created reality which, once you become aware of it, you have to either deal with (mentally, emotionally, psychologically) and determine where to stand regarding it — or take another sedative and go back to sleep.
The Internet is a great, addicting perhaps, but effective way to spread that net; it fishes and sets out bait both. But, it’s here, and must be dealt with, as a whole lotta money is traveling along that net (being tracked as it goes), and this technology, this tool — like many technological advances — is often used for warfare, to kill. The question is just, who.
To be read alongside a page added to the other blog:
More references for the curious, here (I haven’t reviewed, just put up one or two):http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-disputed-books.htm and (better narration here) http://freethought.mbdojo.com/canon.html
Wolverine/Michigan-ian:
Those who fight back — confronting illegal home invasions fraudulently ordered (NOT even legitimately court-ordered) for purposes of kidnapping, for purpose of institutionalizing, for the purpose of then administering dangerous drugs to minor children — can, and will, be treated as felons and stripped of their kids, and months/years of their lives in the fight. That’s the Michigan reference, above. Testimony (at the rally) of those on Risperdal:
Posted on 04/08/2011 by Diane Bukowski
Charges have been dropped, she has her daughter back, but they are considering re-instating. This story deserves follow-up: Voice of Detroit did good investigative reporting. The same CPS worker that did this in 2011 was, in 2010, facing a civil lawsuit for pulling a similar stunt to a related (married) couple, only five (5) children were nabbed and put into three different foster homes for 4o months; the amount of deceit involved is simply stunning. (Brent family, look it up at “justice4maryanne” site).
The community rallied, and it seems the family was targeted from a number of angles: single mother, intelligent and insisting on choice (not “the program”), she homeschooled, she was also African-American and in (I remember seeing, can’t find link) the community was poor. How dare this community not fork over their kids to the Title IV-driven systems for Rx profits?
While people like these have to fight — with whatever they got — to keep their kids, another one DID fall between the cracks, in N. California (I also have a page on this — to right), and at least one post; an alert UC Berkeley campus security guard (mother) was alert, and followed up, leading to the YOUNG mother below’s release, along with the two kids. After 18 years in captivity!
Jaycee Dugard Files Lawsuit Against U.S. Government
Rebecca Bailey, PhD – Psy 18732
ANYHOW . . . The Three Cities and Fiat Currency . . . .
The Moneylenders Take Over England
In the 19th century, the Rothchild banking family’s Nathan Rothchild said it well:
{{2012 is an election year. Americans (USA) would do well to keep this in mind also.}}
Centuries early, moneylender power was absent. But after the 1666 Coinage Act, money-issuing authority, once the sole right of kings, was transferred into private hands. “Bankers now had the power to cause inflations and depressions at will by issuing or withholding their gold coins.”
King William III (1672 – 1702), a Dutch aristocrat, financed his war against France by borrowing 1.2 million pounds in gold in a secret transaction with moneylenders, the arrangement being a permanent loan on which debt would be serviced and its principle [“principal”] never repaid. It came with other strings as well:
— lenders got a charter to establish the Bank of England (in 1694) with monopoly power to issue banknotes as national paper currency;
— it created them out of nothing, with only a fraction of them as reserves;
— loans to the government were to be backed by government IOUs to serve as reserves for creating additional loans to private borrowers; and
— lenders could consolidate the national debt on their government loan to secure payment through people-extracted taxes.
{{sound familiar yet?}}
It was a prescription for huge profits and “substantial political leverage. The Bank’s charter gave the force of law to the ‘fractional reserve’ banking scheme that put control of the country’s money” in private hands. It let the Bank of England create money out of nothing and charge interest for loans to the government and others – the same practice central banks now employ.
{{{“TALLIES”}}
For the next century, banknotes and tallies circulated interchangeably even though they weren’t a compatible means of exchange. Banker money expanded when “credit expanded and contracted when loans were canceled or ‘called,’ producing cycles of ‘tight’ money and depression alternating with ‘easy’ money and inflation.” In contrast, tallies were permanent, stable, fixed money, making banknotes look bad so they had to go.
For another reason as well – because of King William’s disputed throne and fear if he were deposed, moneylenders again might be banned. They used their influence to legalize banknotes as the money of the realm called “funded” debt with tallies referred to as “unfunded,” what historians see as the beginning of a “Financial Revolution.” In the end, “tallies met the same fate as witches – death by fire.”
{{ACTUALLY– SOUNDS LIKE THE REVERSE WAS TRUE. TALLIES WERE FUNDED, AND THE BANKNOTES, WERE NOT}}
They were money of the people competing with moneylending bankers. After 1834 monetary reform, “tally sticks went up in flames in a huge bonfire started in a House of Lords stove.” Ironically, it got out of control and burned down Westminster Palace and both Houses of Parliament, symbolically ending “an equitable era of trade (by transferring power) from the government to the” central bank.
{{simple explanation:on the terms, and this burning: terms “tally” “stocks” “broker” (Stockade) and “Exchequer”, Charles Dickens quoted}}
(MY INSERT — more on TALLY STICKS:
Original Wooden Tally Sticks (2)
[England, Westminster, c. 1250-1275]
hickory wood, the larger end cut diagonally, edges roughly squared off leaving traces of bark, each inscribed along one side with the name of the payer and the upper and lower edges cut with notches (“v”-shaped for pounds, broad grooves for shillings, sharp cuts for pence), each piece then split with a knife by cutting diagonally across the thicker end of the reverse side and pulling away a length which would be retained separately by the payer as proof of payment, written in thirteenth-century charter hands. c. 175-200 mm. long (each).
Rare survival of a medieval form of financial record-keeping, the tally stick provides the origin of many words used in modern money markets: stock, foil, stockholder, bank stock, and check. The vast majority were destroyed in the nineteenth century in the fire of the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.
INTERESTING:
Tallies provide the earliest form of bookkeeping. They were used in England by the Royal Exchequer from about the twelfth century onward. Since the notches for the sums were cut right through both pieces and since no stick splits in an even manner, the method was virtually foolproof against forgery. They were used by the sheriff to collect taxes and to remit them to the king. They were also used by private individuals and institutions, to register debts, record fines, collect rents, enter payments for services rendered, and so forth. By the thirteenth century, the financial market for tallies was sufficiently sophisticated that they could be bought, sold, or discounted.
“Tallies were … a sophisticated and practical record of numbers. They were more convenient to keep and store than parchments, less complex to make, and no easier to forge…. Of the millions of medieval tallies made, only a few hundred survive.” (Clanchy, p. 96; see also p. 95, n. 28, pl. VIII). In 1724, treasury officials commanded that tallies no longer be used, but it was not until 1834, with the reform acts and the abolition of the office of the Receipt of the Exchequer, that a huge bonfire of the then-obsolete medieval tally sticks was held. Started in a stove stuffed full of sticks in the House of Lords, the fire quickly got out of control, spreading to the paneling, and burning down both the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.
In 1911, Sir Hilary Jenkinson knew of only three Exchequer tally sticks in private hands (pp. 292-3, 330, and 350).
The evolution of money technologies originates with the tally stick. From tally stick comes the modern word “stock,” meaning a financial certificate and deriving from the use of the Middle English for the stick. The piece retained by the bank was called the “foil.” The holder of the stock was said to be the “stockholder” and owned “bank stock.” A written certificate presented for remittance and checked against its security later became a “check.”
According to legend, Wall Street was founded in its present location because of the presence there of an enormous chestnut tree, said to be plentiful enough to supply enough tally sticks for the emerging American stock market.
LITERATURE
Clanchy, M. T. From Memory to Written Record, England 1066-1307, Cambridge, Mass., 1979.
Jenkinson, Hilary C. “Exchequer Tallies,” Archaeologia, second series, 12 (1911), pp. 292 ff.
ONLINE RESOURCES
Tallies and Technologies, by Dave Birch, Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce
http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/9811-11.htm
The Origins of Mathematics
http://www.math.tamu.edu~don.allen/history/origins/origins.html
[[The other source cited is the link, above to definitions]]
forum.prisonplanet. . . cont’d….
Henceforth {{1834ff?}}, private bankers kept government in debt, never demanding the return of principle [“principal”], and profiting by extracting interest, a very lucrative system always paying off “like a slot machine” rigged to benefit its operators. It became the basis for modern central banking, lending its “own notes (printed paper money), which the government swaps for bonds (its promises to pay) and circulates as a national currency.”
{{BONDS — hold that thought}}
Government debt is never repaid. It’s continually rolled over and serviced, today with no gold in reserve to back it. Though gone, tallies left their mark. The word “stock” comes from the tally stick. Much of the original Bank of England stock was bought with these sticks. In addition, stock issuance began during the Middle Ages as a way to finance businesses when no interest-bearing loans were allowed.
This is not “archaic” information and irrelevant — it’s VERY current. I am still digesting — but it makes sense. Here’s a Brit (I gather) relating the Monarchy’s relationship to the Corporation of London (which holds the crown — the one you’ve seen on TV perhaps, loaned out for state occasions) and correlating to a May, 2011 meeting with the British Prime Minister Cameron with Eurozone personnel, re: ESM (Hey, it’s new term to me….). I just saw Cameron sitting next to President Obama watching a basketball game, on TV….
He is thinking in terms of the Corporation that holds the (moulah) versus the “State” which is subject to it. It’s a BIG deal!
That meeting, the ESM and the Crown – why Cameron said NO
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
March 14, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Posted in Bush Influence & Appointees (Cat added 11/2011), Business Enterprise, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parenting Coordination promotion, PhDs in Psychology-Psychiatry etc (& AFCC), Vocabulary Lessons, warfare: strategic
Tagged with "Bush 2002 Exec Order -New Freedom Commission", "Strong Field Project", 3 Cities That Rule the World, Brave Young Adults, Child Molestation, CPRADR, CPS Child-stealing, DV, DV industry, England, Evolving Canon of Bible, fatherhood, fighting back, Godboldo case, Handwriting On the Wall from Bible-Read it Now, Humantrafficking, incest, Intimate partner violence, JAYC, Jaycee Dugard, London, mediation, men's rights, Motherhood, obelisk, Parenting Coordination, Pharma, Phil Garrido, Rebecca Bailey PhD, retaliation for reporting, social commentary, Social Issues from Religious Viewpoints, State vs Corporation, Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Supervised Visitation, the Secular Web, Thomas J Stipanovich, TMAP/PennMAP, Transitioning Families, trauma, Vatican, VOD, WDC, Who Owns America?